


Brother: How We Found Takashi

by noussommeslessquelettes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Autistic Keith (Voltron), Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), College, Conspiracy, Conspiracy Theories, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fine Arts Major, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Adoptive Siblings, Kissing, Laith, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, M/M, Making Out, Mutual Pining, POV Lance (Voltron), Panic Attacks, Past Character Death, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Slow Burn, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), Survivor Guilt, conspiracy theorist keith, klance, only one but like the tags are already pluralised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 17:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noussommeslessquelettes/pseuds/noussommeslessquelettes
Summary: Creatively speaking, Lance is stumped. Academically speaking, he’s totally fucked. He’s a fourth-year film major in dire need of a subject for a final assignment. Luckily enough, his friend Pidge gets a sudden phone call from a childhood friend in need of her help, and she strikes a deal with him that just might save Lance’s chance at graduation (that is, if he and this guy Keith can set aside their animosity long enough to actually get something done.)





	1. One - Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Subjectless and running out of time before the end of the semester, Lance knows he’s doomed. That is, until Pidge gets a phone-call from a mystery friend, someone who she claims has a story that will save Lance’s hopes to graduate on time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there welcom 2 yet another klance fic. I can’t stop writing these bois.
> 
> This story originated from a number of places. For starters, it was inspired by the Netflix series The Keepers (which is an amazing series but mind the trigger warnings if uve got em) when I originally started this fic ~a half a year ago. I abandoned the WIP after two scenes (one of which is no longer in the fic bc it was originally gonna have alternating pov and it was a keith scene), then recently decided to pick it back up again, which comes to my next inspiration to write this.  
> Very recently I was diagnosed as autistic, which was a true ass blessing because it’s given me a better understanding of who I am. It’s given me the opportunity to see my world for what it truly is and thus interpret my reactions to it more accurately and healthily. In much of the same way as I accidentally characterised Lance as ADHD in my earliest fic, I kind of realised partway through writing this story that the Keith I was writing was autistic, like me. If you ask me, all writing is therapy, so this story’s got a lot of elements of self-therapy to work through and even celebrate my autism, much as writing Lance has done--and continues to do--the same with my ADHD.  
> The last inspiration for this story is that it’s a bit of a fix-it for the finale of s4. I identify a lot with Keith and insomuch as I understand that the Voltron canon isn’t finished, it really hurt me to see his clear mental anguish go unaddressed into s5. Let me be clear: I am NOT trying to make any sort of commentary on the show’s writing with this fic. What it is is just my personal way of working through my hyper-empathy, of showing myself that our story doesn’t end with pain and loneliness, and that we can always push through to get our happy ending.
> 
> Special thanks to my friend Oneyedkaneking on Tumblr for being my special guest beta on this story, as well as listening to me ramble about this story as I wrote it haha (also for proofing the Spanish at the end for my non-Spanish-speaking ass, thanx 4 my fuckign life)
> 
> So with all that said have some neurodivergent gay from ur local neurodivergent gay *exeunt while dabbing*

“It’s official,” Lance announces somberly to the whole cafeteria, although it’s only Hunk and Pidge who acknowledge it. They looked up from their books as Lance dropped unceremoniously into a chair, folding his arms against the tabletop and burying his face in them. “I’m screwed. Done for. Finished.”

Across the table, he heard Pidge sigh. “Finally getting booted by the Dean?”

“No,” he griped into the fabric of his hoodie.

From his side, Hunk placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Look Lance, it’ll probably be faster if you just tell us what you did, instead of making us guess.”

_ Okay, maybe ‘comforting’ was the wrong choice of words _ , Lance supposed. “Why do you two always assume  _ I _ did something wrong?”

“Are you denying it?” Pidge retorted.

Lance huffed, lifting his head to rest his chin on his forearms instead, frowning at her. “Okay yeah, I fucked up,” he admitted, “but it wasn’t my fault!”

Pidge sent him a withering look. “Just tell us what you did, Lance. I’ve got a test in half an hour and I really need to study.”

“Ugh, okay. You know my Tuesday class, the one I’ve got with Coran?” Pidge nodded, and Hunk contributed a ‘yeah’ from his side. “‘Kay, so I kind of… forgot about our final in the course.”

She blinked, furrowing her brow. “O… kay? It’s March.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “It’s a twenty-minute documentary, and I was supposed to submit my clips to him this week.”

“Lemme guess,” Hunk said, “you’ve got nothing.”

“Not my fault! It’s just— _ ugh _ !” He sat up, rubbing circles into his temple. “Nothing’s coming to me! I’ve got no inspiration, no topic, no footage, and soon that’s going to mean no credit, no degree, no job, and I’m going to be sharing my parents’ basement with my grandmother, arguing over who’s going to sleep on the lumpy side of the mattress tonight, which  _ obviously _ she’ll win, because—”

“Lance,” Hunk interrupted, “if you’re having trouble, then why don’t you just tell Coran? You know he’d help you in a heartbeat.”

Lance groaned, gritting his teeth. “See, that’s the thing. I kinda… already told him I was done filming…” Hunk pinched the bridge of his nose, and Pidge shook her head. “What do you  _ want  _ from me? He was telling me about how excited he was to see my work, and how he knew I’d hit it out of the park. He called me his favourite student, guys—his favourite! How could I deny him that joy?”

“You’re a saint, Lance,” Pidge deadpanned, turning back to her textbook.

“There’s no way he said you’re his favourite student,” Hunk added. “That seems unprofessional, even for him.”

“Well he might as well have!” Lance argued. “He said he was going to submit my doc to local festivals, and he hasn’t even seen my footage!”

“Your non-existent footage, you mean?” Pidge asked. Lance stuck his tongue out at her. 

Her phone suddenly chimed, as though awakened by Lance’s rude gesture, and she held a finger up to him as she dug it out of her bag. She pulled it out, her expression turning questioning when she read the contact information onscreen.

“Hang on,” she muttered, distracted, “I’ve got to take this.” She answered it, leaning back in her chair as she spoke, almost furtively, into the receiver.

“Alright, well a documentary should be pretty easy, right?” Hunk reasoned, nearly managing to drown out Pidge’s voice. “It’s not like you have to come up with a story, you just have to find one.”

Lance furrowed his brow, following Hunk’s words with a little more difficulty with the phone call adding to the ambient cacophony of the caf. “You’d think, but tell me something Hunk: how many interesting stories have just  _ fallen  _ into your lap around here in the past week?”

“Didn’t you have since, like, September to do this?”

Lance waved a dismissive hand. “Technicalities!”

Pidge sent him a dark look, tilting her phone away from her mouth. “D’you two  _ mind _ ? I’m—” her expression dropped alongside whatever she was about to say, and she tilted the phone back. “Hey, I’ll come on one condition.” Her gaze was still fixed to Lance, so he sent her a wink. She sneered at him, turning away. “I get to bring my friend along.”

Okay, now Lance was regretting turning her attention away, because he really wanted to know what  _ that _ meant. He settled for turning to Hunk, his questioning look meeting one from him, before the two of them turned back to Pidge.

“It’ll be  _ fine _ ,” she assured, “you’ll love him.” She paused, a small smirk tugging at her lips despite her. “Okay yeah, I didn’t believe that either—but you need me and you know it.” Her smile broke out into a full-on grin, and she nodded. “There’s the spirit, Keith! We’ll drive down tomorrow afternoon. Yep, see you.” She hung up, kicking her feet up onto the table as she busied herself with her cellphone, pointedly refusing to meet Lance’s gaze.

She was baiting him, and he was too impatient not to rise to it.

“Well?” He leaned forward on his elbows, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“Hm?” She glanced at him, an unmistakable glint in her eye. “Oh, it’s nothing, I just casually saved your ass, no big deal.” Lance’s eyebrows shot up.

“Who called you?” Hunk asked.

“An old friend from home, and soon, Lance’s subject.”

Lance folded his arms across his chest. “Shouldn’t  _ I _ be making that call?”

Her lips pursed, and she planted her feet on the floor once more. “Don’t get picky on me, Lance. Last I remember, you didn’t have much choice.”

He slouched back, admitting defeat. “Fair enough. Can Hunk come?”

“Why don’t you ask  _ him _ ?”

Lance spun in his chair, latching onto Hunk’s near forearm and flashing him his best puppy-dog look. Hunk rolled his eyes, a vain attempt at covering his smile. “Yeah, yeah, count me in—as if I could ever leave you two unsupervised.”

Lance grinned, clapping his hands together. “Alright! So what’s this guy’s deal, Pidge?” He turned to her.

She tutted, wagging a finger at him. “No spoilers. It’s Keith’s story to tell, not mine.”

His good mood faltered, brow furrowing. “What—nothing? You’re not going to tell me anything about them—”

“Him,” she corrected.

“Him—thank you—until we get there? How am I supposed to prepare?”

She rolled her eyes, pushing to stand. “Just get all your regular camera shit—and pack for the week.”

“A week?” Hunk groaned, gathering his books into a pile and pushing them into his backpack. “Pidge, I had  _ plans  _ for the break.”

“Well, take that up with mister ‘binge-watches all eleven seasons of  _ M*A*S*H _ instead of studying’ over there.”

“Hey!” Lance protested, standing himself. “Watching _M*A*S*H_ _is_ studying; that show is pure genius. The finale? I was in tears,” he demonstrated by dragging his pointer fingers down his cheeks, “the whole two-and-a-half hours.”

She turned to Hunk once more, slinging her bag over her shoulder and scooping up her textbook. “Either way, pack for a week in Douglas. We’re leaving early tomorrow morning, and I won’t be waiting for stragglers.” She sent Lance a pointed look, then turned on her heel.

He threw his hands in the air, he and Hunk quickly tailing on her. “Why’s it always  _ me  _ you target, Pidgey? What did I ever do to you?”

“First of all, the hour-long morning routine. Second, Hunk’s anxiety means I don’t have to worry about him being late.”

Hunk gave him a sheepish smile as they caught up to Pidge, sandwiching her on either side. “It’s true, sorry Lance.”

Lance huffed. “To think I could’ve just been a  _ little  _ more neurotic, and then I wouldn’t have to deal with Pidge’s constant bullying.”

She elbowed him amicably. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.”

“Y’see, it’s like I just can’t win!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The series finale of M*A*S*H is in-fucking-TENSE. I emerged from it forever changed. Also, I love the notion of Lance having a hyperfixation on movies/film/pop culture in general. I love my ADHD son Lance McClain.
> 
> Also fair warning I have no idea what the American post-secondary calendar year looks like, I’m just going by logic and a bit of Googling and hoping I don’t directly contradict fact.
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	2. Two - Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge makes introductions. Lance botches first impressions. Keith doesn’t do so well either. Hunk remorselessly breaks the sacred laws of pizza toppings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Klance arguments honestly write themselves. I’m not even doing anything I just sit in the back eatin popcorn sayin “once y’all are done lemme know and I’ll get back to writing.”
> 
> I needed to write conspiracy theorist Keith at least ONCE in my life. It’s like a klance fic writer bucket list thing if u ask me.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER NOW HAS FANART!!! [ GO CHECK IT OUT AND GIVE IT LOTS OF LOVE AND REBLOGS!!!](http://newtsdoodles.tumblr.com/post/177118638048/scene-from-brother-how-we-found-takashi-by) Thanks so much to [newtsdoodles](http://newtsdoodles.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr for the art (and for making my whole year dfjkgfjkfgd)

“Hey Pidge?” Lance spoke up from the backseat, pulling his headphones out of his ears as she steered the car into a long, gravel driveway—leading up to the first house they’d seen in miles of forest. “Were you planning on killing us and dumping our bodies in the woods? ‘Cause if so I want to call my mom one last time and tell her I love her. Also that my best friend’s a killer and dumping my body in the woods.”

Pidge scoffed, parking behind the lone rusted, black sedan sitting in front of the garage. “I know you’re a baby, Lance, but do you mind growing a spine? Just for the week.”

Lance sputtered indignantly, thrusting a hand up to demonstrate the surroundings, as though Pidge were anything but well aware of where she’d driven them. “Uhh, mind taking a look around? You literally drove us to an  _ actual  _ cabin in the woods, out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere.”

“Fine Lance,” she drawled in the most patronising voice she could conjure, shutting off the ignition, “I promise I won’t kill you and leave your body to rot in the wilderness.”

“What about your friend, Keith?” Hunk asked, less for his own benefit and more for Lance’s—what could he say? His best friend knew better than him where his hyperactive imagination would go, and sure enough his train of thought stopped at the question no sooner than it’d been asked. 

This ‘Keith’ was, after all, the one who owned the cabin in the woods.

“ _ That _ ,” Pidge unclipped her seatbelt, wrenching her door open, “I can’t guarantee. Don’t piss him off, I guess, and you’ll be okay.” She hopped out, stretching her tired legs.

Lance followed suit, and Hunk did the same, albeit with a snort. “Lance’ll be toast then.”

She snickered, and Lance gasped, his mouth hung open in indignance as he stepped out behind her, gaze flicking between the two traitors. “Rude, and also inaccurate! Bet you five bucks I charm the  _ pants _ off this Keith dude.”

Pidge rolled her eyes at him, leading them past the parked car without incident, despite doing so backwards and without looking over her shoulder. “As funny as it might be to watch you get your nose broken, you’re not allowed to flirt with Keith. I’m forbidding it.”

“You’re just begging him to do it now, I hope you know,” Hunk supplied from Lance’s side. Lance, for his part, gave an accepting shrug.

“Is he cute?” He asked, the picture of innocence. Pidge sighed, turning around, and Lance redoubled his efforts. “Piiiidge, if he wasn’t cute why would you need to forbid it in the first place?” He skipped to close the distance between them, trying to no avail to crane his neck over her shoulder and into her line of sight as they made it up the rickety front steps, weathered wood creaking beneath their footfalls.

“He’s different,” Pidge stated, unyielding as she came to a stop on the welcome mat (frayed and worn down, was anything about this guy’s house  _ not  _ in a state of disrepair?). “And if you make him uncomfortable, he shuts up like a clam, and you get no story. So please,” she banged a fist against the door a handful of times, before turning to him and pinning him with a sharp look, “don’t fuck this up.”

Lance broke eye contact first, covering his discomfort under her intensity with a huff and eyeing the peeling paint on the mailbox instead. “Or you could, y’know, tell me the first thing about him and why the hell we’re down here,” he griped.

She didn’t reply, so Hunk opted to. “We’re going to find out from Keith soon enough; better to get the story straight from the source, isn’t it?”

Lance pursed his lips, hands going to his hips as he turned on Hunk. “Yeah but you and me know nothing about the guy himself, we haven’t even seen a picture! What if he’s some middle-aged weirdo hermit who hasn’t met another human face-to-face in years—”

Without fanfare, the door behind Lance creaks loudly as it’s swung open. Quick to react, he clamps his mouth shut and whirls around to finally catch a glimpse of this mystery man, and…

He’s cute. Score one for Lance.

Also  _ definitely  _ not middle-aged, probably around his own age, in fact. He stood a hair shorter than Lance (and oh boy, that  _ hair _ —he’d get to that), as evidenced by the slight downward tilt Lance’s eyes have to travel to meet the other’s. From beneath an unkempt shag of thick black hair, he looked up at Lance questioningly—almost warily—brow furrowed and shoulders unmistakably tensed under a thin white t-shirt.

“Hi?” He asked, and it was almost a challenge, Lance hearing the rusty hinges complain as Keith’s grip shifted to tighten against the door.

“Keith!” Pidge leapt in front of him, throwing her arms around his neck and nearly toppling him into the doorframe. Shock flashed across Keith’s face momentarily, but it quickly transformed into a grin, and he wrapped his arms around her waist to return the embrace, lifting her off the ground as he straightened up.

“Long time no see, Pidge,” he laughed into her shoulder, dropping her down after a long moment.

“These are my friends.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder once back on terra firma, directing Keith’s gaze to her two companions.

_ Alright Lance, time to shine _ . He threw on his signature grin, holding a hand out to Keith—either to shake or kiss, Lance didn’t really care one way or the other. “The name’s Lance.” Keith eyed the offered hand dubiously, then Lance himself, not once moving to reciprocate the gesture.

_ Rude,  _ Lance frowned. He let his hand drop to his side before stuffing them both in his pockets.

“I’m Hunk,” Hunk spoke up from Lance’s side, offering a genuine smile and a wave.

“Keith.” He pressed his palm to his chest, before half-turning and gesturing towards the house behind him. “You guys want to..?”

Pidge didn’t spare a second before slipping in past him, kicking her shoes off as if it were her own home and whistling lowly as she looked around the dimly-lit front room. “Jeez Keith, y’ever heard of cleaning up?” She took a running start to the couch, vaulting over the armrest of the couch and lying back across the cushions.

“I cleaned up yesterday,” Keith mumbled defensively, slowly striding towards her, leaving the door open for Lance and Hunk to follow.

“Hey bud?” Lance asked over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold. “Mind grabbing the camera from the car?”

“On it.” Hunk nodded, spinning on his heel and retracing his steps.

“Camera?” Keith asked, and when Lance looked up from toeing off his shoes he saw Keith stopped midway to the couch, halted midstride and turned to give Lance a severe frown.

Lance chuckled, more uncomfortable than amused, under Keith’s intense gaze. “Uh, yeah? I won’t be filming this on my phone.”

Keith’s eyes went wide. “You’re not filming anything! I’m not having you risk years of  _ my _ work—”

“Woah wait, what are you talking about?” He snapped, tensing reflexively at the drastic shift in demeanour, “the whole point of me  _ coming _ was to film this.”

“Camera’s on!” Hunk announced as he re-entered, resting their rented top-of-the-line camera atop his shoulder as he squinted into the viewfinder.

“No, camera’s  _ off _ ,” Keith countered, pointing a reprimanding finger at the lens. “Look, I don’t know  _ where _ you got the idea that—” realisation dawned on his face, and he turned his attention back to the couch. “Pidge,” he warned.

She pulled up to kneel on the couch, folding her arms over the armrest as she arranged her face into naïve surprise. “Oh, did I forget to tell you? Lance is a film major, so he’s going to be filming you for his assignment. Innocent mistake.”

Keith scoffed, clearly as unconvinced of her sincerity as Lance was. “You don’t have an innocent bone in your body.”

She let the façade drop a half-measure, giving a wry smirk. “Sharp words from the guy who slept with half the baseball team in high school.”

Lance’s eyebrows shot up, but Keith just rolled his eyes. “I slept with  _ two _ of them, the rest were, like, third base at m—” he cut himself off, turning back to fix Lance and Hunk with a mortified look. “I… hey quit—don’t  _ record _ that!” He marched towards Hunk, and Lance leapt in between the two, arms splayed out protectively.

“ _ Hang on,  _ pal. This thing’s a loaner, and probably worth more than this shithole shack if I break it—”

“Lance,” Hunk chided, but Lance dismissed him with a flick of his still-outstretched hand.

“You want to touch it? You have to get through me first.”

Keith stopped toe-to-toe with Lance, and he relished in the knowledge that Keith had to tilt his chin up to give him a challenging glare. His confidence was short-lived though;  Keith brought his hands up, cracking his knuckles in a display that was  _ without a doubt _ for show, but damn did it get the point across, flexing defined muscles under the tight skin of his arms.

Also, Lance was like, two percent turned on. Strong emotions can easily get conflated, you couldn’t  _ judge him _ .

“I think I like my odds,” Keith ground out, making Lance momentarily reconsider if the thousand-dollar camera was really worth having his face rearranged.

“Okay, stop it,” Pidge reprimanded, grabbing Keith’s arm and yanking him out of Lance’s breathing space. “This was our deal, Keith. You let my friends come along, and you get my help.”

Keith’s hateful glare never lifted, so neither did Lance’s. “Recording this is a huge risk, and it’s not one I’m willing to take. It’s bad enough letting you guys in here with the GPS trackers in your phones.”

Lance scoffed, folding his arms across his chest. “Risk of  _ what _ ? You got the Russians spying on you?”

“ _ No _ ,” he insisted, as though that were any more ridiculous than what he corrected it to, “the police.”

Lance straightened, his anger dropping in favour of bewilderment. “The…” He pursed his lips, shaking his head, before grimacing, hands coming up to run through his hair. “Oh my goddd…”

“Now hang on,” Pidge cautioned him, holding up a hand.

“Pidge.” Lance turned to her, dropping his hands to reveal a sober expression. “Your friend is crazy, okay? Sorry I had to be the one to tell you.”

“It’s  _ true _ ,” Keith growled, fists clenching at his sides, “why the hell else would I live out in the middle of fucking nowhere?”

Lance turned back on Keith, spitting venom. “Oh, I don’t know,  _ guy _ , probably because you’re a nutcase who thinks the government is monitoring every shit you take.”

“It’s not the—” He growled, cutting himself off. “Look, I don’t need this from you, you’ve got no idea the hell I’ve been through trying to reveal the truth. They killed my brother, and they’ve been after me ever since.”

Lance shook his head. “I’ll be in the car—can’t  _ believe  _ I came all the way out here for this…” he trailed off into mutters as he pivoted on his heel, heading right to his discarded shoes in the front atrium.

“Hey—Lance, wait up,” Hunk called quietly, barely audible under Keith’s reply.

“Great!” He shouted. “Don’t let the door hit you!”

Hunk caught up to him just as he slid his first sneaker on, a hand coming to rest against Lance’s shoulder. “Hang on. We’re already here, so why don’t we hear him out before we make any big decisions?”

Lance huffed, scuffing his sneaker against the floor to get it all the way on. “Don’t tell me you actually  _ believe  _ that conspiracy hooey.”

“Honestly? I have no idea. Maybe he’s right, or maybe he  _ is  _ crazy, but isn’t it worth it to stick around and find out? Either way, you get a story out of it.”

Lance frowned, boring his glare into the hardwood. “He’s clearly impossible, Hunk. I can’t work with someone who’s that dramatic!”

“I can only imagine,” Hunk deadpanned (and Lance could admit he  _ maybe  _ deserved that a little bit.) “But he lost his brother, Lance. Try to imagine how you’d react in his place.”

Lance groaned. Of  _ course _ , Hunk’d pull the sibling card. He snuck a peek over Hunk’s shoulder and caught sight of Keith, pulled over to the couch by Pidge and seeming to get the same lecture as Lance. He also seemed about as receptive, arms folded over his chest as he wordlessly glared her down.

Lance bit his lip, unable to imagine the loss of a single one of his siblings, and what it might do to him. Make him frigid, temperamental—hell, maybe even make him believe it was a conspiracy.

“Why do you always have to be  _ sensible _ ,” he bemoaned.

Hunk chuckled softly. “Hey I don’t like it either, but being around you and Pidge kind of forces me to be the responsible one.”

Lance sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Alright  _ fine _ ,” he announced, the whole of the house turning to him. “I’ll film the thing.”

“And who said I’ll let you film the  _ thing _ ,” Keith retorted, injecting the maximum amount of venom possible one could into such a word. Pidge sharply elbowed him in the side, paired it with a matching glare, and he yielded, seeming to deflate in turn. “Okay, whatever.”

Pidge grinned. “Don’t look so excited, you two.” She grabbed Keith’s arm, unfurling it with little protest from its owner, and pulled him further into the house. “Now c’mon, let’s go see that hard drive!”

* * *

“Here.” Keith leaned over Lance’s shoulder, gingerly setting the hard drive in the centre of the tiny square of a kitchen table the three others sat around.

Pidge squealed in delight, shuffling forward on her elbows. “Let me see, let me see!” She pulled it towards her and dropped back in her chair, lifting it up to examine each side in the light.

Lance squinted, trying to get a look at it from his position across her. All in all it looked unremarkable: Just a polished steel rectangle, about the size of a hefty novel. It had no discernible features, apart from the decal of an insignia stuck neatly on the centre of what Lance would assume to be the face.

But the way Pidge appraised it, she made it seem like this was the find of the century. Lance’s mind likened it to how paleontologists might react to the discovery of some new, fancy dinosaur bones.

She ran her finger along one of the edges. “Mind if I crack her open?”

Keith shrugged, coming down into the only remaining chair, sitting opposite Hunk. “By all means.”

She dropped it down on the table and ducked beneath it to root through the backpack laying at her feet. “By the way, d’you maybe want to give those two some backstory while I’m working on this?” She resurfaced with a glasses repair kit in hand, popping it open to retrieve a tiny screwdriver.

“Uh…” Keith glanced apprehensively between Lance and Hunk (and Lance did his best not to glare daggers back, you’re  _ welcome _ world.) “Where do I start?”

Lance waved his hand to catch his eye. “Yeah, I got a question: how’d you two become friends?” He motioned between he and Pidge, before folding both arms against the tabletop. “I was under the impression that Pidge didn’t have any of those before me and Hunk.”

He raised an eyebrow, but before he could even attempt to reply, Pidge opted to. “He’s gay, I’m trans,” she explained, eyes not lifting from her work as she wedged the screwdriver along an edge, leveraging it beneath a seam to pry off the face, “and we were the only two queer kids in a town of, like, a thousand people, so we stuck together.”

Keith gave an accepting shrug, looking back to her. “We knew each other through family too. My brother worked with hers and her dad.”

“A long time ago,” she added.

“Even after that, my aunt and uncle had you guys over all the time.”

She glanced up at Lance and Hunk, adding, “Shiro’s parents,” as explanation.

Hunk furrowed his brow. “Shiro?”

Keith looked back to him, eyes widening slightly in surprise. “Oh, Shiro’s my brother.” He winced, then amended. “Er, Shiro’s my  _ cousin _ , but, uh, he was also my brother—”

“Keith got adopted by his aunt and uncle. So Shiro was his legal brother, but his parents weren’t Keith’s.”

“Okay, makes sense.” Hunk nodded.

Lance frowned, the pieces very slowly clicking together for him. “And Shiro’s dead? Ow— _ Hunk _ !” He yelped when his shin got swiftly kicked under the table.

“You got it,” Pidge approved, pulling a jeweller’s loupe out of her backpack now. Keith leaned towards her on his elbows, curling his legs up under him on the chair. “You’re blocking my light,” she reprimanded, and he tilted his head back a touch. “Why don’t you go show them your murder board, Keith?”

He stammered defensively. “It’s—don’t call it that, you make me sound like a nutjob.” Lance really didn’t mean to scoff, but he realised he’d done so far too late to cover it up. Keith snapped on him, his glare returning. “Got something you want to share?”

Lance shook his head fervently as he stood, fighting back a smirk. “Not at all, lead the way to the murder board.”

* * *

Lance gave a low whistle, scanning the bedroom through the viewfinder of the camera as he and Hunk followed Keith through the doorway. “I’ve got to admit, I appreciate your commitment to the bit. You’ve got the conspiracy theorist aesthetic down to a  _ tee _ .”

And it was true: streaks of late-afternoon sunlight filtered in through a back window, enveloping the room in warm hues. Loose paper and manila folders littered the ground and covered almost every flat surface, and Lance almost ate shit when he tripped over an abandoned biology textbook he hadn’t seen through the lens.

He righted in time to catch Keith’s disdainful glare through the aperture. Lance held his tongue, patient for his retort, but none came. Instead, he turned back around, walking up to the longest wall in the room, bare of furniture and just big enough to hang the corkboard he now gestured vaguely at with one hand.

Lance panned across the board, ending by freezing the shot on Keith. “Yup, that’s a murder board, pal.”

Keith’s eyes narrowed, his arm dropping. “Don’t say it like that, it makes  _ me _ sound like the murderer.”

“Hunk? Camera.” He shouldered it over, rolling his neck out a bit as it was freed of the equipment’s heft, then stepped forward to examine the board.

His eyes landed on the photograph of the man in the centre. He was handsome, a kind smile accented by a sharp jaw, broad shoulders hinting at a fantastic physique hidden beneath a crisp uniform and outside the edges of the headshot. He looked like Keith in the vaguest sense, though his demeanour in the picture certainly clashed with what Lance had seen from the younger one thus far.

He tapped a finger to it, eyes not lifting as he continued to take in the details. Bright eyes, sidecut, a logo over his heart with the word ‘GALRA’ beneath it. “Shiro?”

Keith stepped closer, shoulder brushing against Lance’s when his arms folded over his chest. Lance dropped the finger. “That’s him,” he breathed.

Lance sighed, looking over to Keith. Troubled nostalgia clouded in his eyes, vulnerability threatening to crack through his sturdy mask. “Alright,” he said, and Keith’s gaze flicked over, meeting his momentarily before diverting back, “make your case, then.”

Keith unhooked a hand to point at the photograph again. “Shiro worked for Galra.” His finger traced up a red string, landing on the printed logo that matched the one on the hard drive Pidge was currently tinkering with. “They’re a privately-funded research lab on the outskirts of Douglas, and pretty much everyone who lives in town works for them.”

Lance looked over his shoulder, catching Hunk’s eye and jerking his head to indicate towards Keith’s opposite side. Hunk immediately caught on, hoisting the camera up and disappearing out of Lance’s line of sight to oblige.

Keith didn’t pause his story, not acknowledging Lance’s temporary lapse in focus as he narrated. “This is President Zarkon.” He was now pointing to an image printed out on copy paper, sun-faded ink drawing the photograph of a smiling, middle-aged man sitting behind a large desk. “He runs the facility and oversees everything. His son—” he quickly swept over to an image pinned on Lance’s opposite side, stretching across him to tap on another printed photograph, this time of a grinning police officer with several strings branching off and away. “Is the town sheriff.” He retracted the arm and righted, gaze drifting up to the Galra logo once more. “Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Lance frowned at him, but Hunk spoke up. “Perfect set-up to cover up a crime.” He sounded giddy, like he was piecing together a murder mystery puzzle instead of… okay no yeah, that’s essentially what they were doing right now.

Keith smirked. “Exactly.”

“Alright, so they probably had the means,” Lance yielded, “but what about motive? Why kill Shiro?”

Keith pursed his lips, eyes dropping. “I think he was trying to expose them. I don’t know what kind of research Galra did—no one really does, top-secret and all that shit—but Shiro was bringing home a lot of his work in the months before he disappeared, and he…” Keith paused, rubbing under his nose, “just the way he talked about them, I guess. I didn’t think anything of it at the time—I thought he just hated his job, but now…”

“Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, man,” Hunk offered. Keith looked up to him, lips graced with the hint of a grateful smile.

“I’m done!” Pidge bellowed from the kitchen. Keith spun towards the doorway, eyes lighting up, murder board completely forgotten as he rushed back out his bedroom.

Left in Keith’s dust, Lance glanced back towards Hunk. “C’mon.” He motioned with an arm and turned to follow, slipping gracelessly on a stack of stack of papers as he made his way out.

When they got back, Keith was standing over Pidge at the table, a hand planted on the surface as he scrutinised the disassembled pieces of the drive scattered before them.

“Gather ‘round, gentlemen,” she beckoned, “you’ll want to see this.”

Lance went over to her free side, Hunk diverting momentarily to drag over their tripod, setting it up opposite the three others as she began.

“So for starters, it’s not a hard drive, it’s an SSD.”

Keith’s shoulders slackened. “So then what’s it do?”

“File storage.”

“So then it  _ is _ a hard drive, isn’t it?” Lance reasoned.

She shook her head. “They store files differently. SSDs are a lot more reliable, because they don’t need a motor to access memory, for starters. They’re also typically more expensive, although as they become more popular—”

“Focus up,” Keith interrupted, shuffling a bit closer to her as Hunk settled on his other side. “Is there anything on it?”

“Can’t check yet,” she admitted, tilting up a side of the drive and pointing to something on the inside. “See that?”

Hunk peered over, and she tilted it more towards him. “Oh man, is that some sort of tripwire?”

“Yep. Try to access the files without permission? It’ll release some sort of fluid stored right here—” she tapped one of a dozen tiny chambers “—and physically destroy the data.”

Hunk grabbed the other edge, lifting it up a bit to catch the light. “What if we tried removing them?”

She stood from her chair, as though tethered to the drive. “I thought about that, but apparently so did Galra. Anti-tampering mechanism right here. You try to take it off, it trips it anyway.”

“So,” Keith started, stretching to the tops of his toes to try and keep following their gestures, “it’s a dead end?”

She scoffed. “You have no faith in me. Did I ever tell you that Hunk’s an engineering prodigy?” Keith’s eyes went wide as he looked to Hunk.

“Aw Pidge,” Hunk said bashfully. “But yeah, I totally am.”

“Smart enough to put the whole Holt family to shame,” she continued.

“So you think you can do it?” Keith asked, hope lilting in his tone.

Hunk shrugged, failing to disguise confidence under nonchalance. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The doorbell rang, and Keith tensed, colour draining from his face as he turned towards the front of the house. He looked almost horrified.

“Pizza,” Pidge stated, turning towards him. “I ordered pizza, you can cool it.”

He huffed, exhaling the tension out of his muscles. “What’s next, did you invite the president over too?”

She snorted. “As much as I’d love to see a cage-match between you and the orange devil, not today. Now go answer it, and don’t be chintzy on the tip— _ Don’t look at me like that _ ,” she warned, “We three are all broke college students, and you have a job.”

Lance managed to bite his tongue before questioning that statement—though it was far from evident someone like Keith had ever gone outside, he sensed that line of questioning wouldn’t go over well with the rest of the house.

“Fine,” he hissed, stalking out of the kitchen and towards whatever unfortunate pizza delivery guy would have to deal with his disdain.

The three of them watched him go, Pidge breaking the silence a beat later. “So that’s Keith. Still think he’s a nut, Lance?”

He rolled his eyes. “Alright,  _ maybe _ all of this is kind of fishy. But this is what top-secret facilities do, right?” He motioned to the hard drive—or the SSD— _ whatever _ . “They take measures to make sure their findings aren’t stolen. Doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy.”

“The sheriff is the CEO’s son, Lance,” Hunk pointed out.

“Yeah, he’s a guy in a position of power who got his kid into a position of power, in a tiny town where  _ almost everyone _ is his employee,” he scoffed. “That’s not suspicious, that’s just America.”

She sighed, grabbing him by the sleeve and tugging him out of the kitchen. “Just you wait, there’s so much more to this story that you don’t even know yet.”

“I hate you,” Keith told her as she dragged Lance back to the front room. He walked towards the couch, balancing a trio of pizza boxes on his arm. “Rolo answered.”

“Ooh,” she cooed, finally relinquishing Lance’s sleeve to wedge herself in the corner of the couch, “and how is our dear friend doing?”

“He works for Sal’s still, so I’m guessing ‘not great.’” He set down the boxes in the centre of the coffee table, dropping himself onto the centre cushion. “It was super awkward. I pretended I didn’t recognise him but he just wouldn’t let it rest. I don’t  _ get it _ ,” he streaked a hand across his face, “just give me the goddamn pizza and go.”

Lance smirked, observing the conversation from a distance as he took the seat next to Keith, leaving the armchair on Pidge’s end open for Hunk.

“Don’t I know it.” Pidge pat a sympathetic hand on Keith’s knee, before redirecting it towards the top box, cracking open one lid at a time to check the toppings. “Alright kids, we’ve got one cheese, one pepperoni, and one hawaiian.”

“You’re a heathen, Hunk,” Lance decreed as Hunk’s face lit up, and from the corner of his eye he caught Keith grimacing too (at least Keith wasn’t a  _ total  _ lost cause, if he didn’t put pineapple on his pizza.)

“Whatever, man,” Hunk replied, as Pidge handed him the bottom box. “If eating pineapple pizza is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.”

They all dug in, conversing idly amongst themselves as the topic strayed from pizza toppings to school, work, family, and what everyone was currently binge-watching on Netflix (Lance got reamed out for watching Riverdale, and Keith elicited horrified gasps from everyone when he revealed he’d never gotten around to watching Friends.)

Pidge stretched her arms over her head, yawning after finishing her sixth slice of the night. “Well, it’s been fun, but I’m going to head home for the night, Keith.”

He nodded, collecting the scattered pizza boxes and piling them together, standing with them in tow. “We’ll start on the hard drive tomorrow.” He sidled past her, rounding the back of Hunk’s chair and heading to the kitchen.

Lance stood too, stretching out his back before shuffling out his end. “I’ll go pack the camera.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you?” She asked, feigning innocence yet again—she  _ had _ to know how suspicious that tone sounded on her—and Lance froze. “You’re going to be staying with Keith.”

“Of  _ course _ ,” Keith grit out, returning in sight and leaning against the doorframe.

_ Rough. Totally fair, but still. _ “Pidge, with all due respect, what the hell?”

“Hey, I’ve only got room for one guest, and Hunk trumps you.”

“He snores!” Lance whined.

“But  _ you’re _ a blanket hog,” she accused. “Besides, this’ll give you more time to  _ immerse yourself in your subject _ , or whatever you call that art stuff.”

Lance groaned. Maybe under other circumstances he’d jump at the chance, but with how things went today between the two of them, he figured the best thing for everyone was to keep him and Keith the hell away from each other as much as possible.

“Where’m I going to put him?” Keith challenged, his tone suggesting he was a dog, not a person.

“Your couch is a pull-out.”

“I’ve got to sleep on a  _ pull-out _ ?” Lance complained.

Keith scoffed, turning to him. “Well I’ve got a free bed, but most guests aren’t too keen on sleeping in the dead guy’s old room.”

Lance squirmed under his gaze. “Alright,” he ceded, “I’ll get my bags from the car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: physical comedy isn’t /inherently/ reductionist humour if you actually build the character around characteristics besides clumsiness  
> Also me: hehe. Lence fol.
> 
> Dragging ur tol friends around by their arm/sleeve is smol ppl culture don’t fuckin @ me. Also the “dead guy’s room” line was one of the earliest lines for this fic, just so y’all know. 
> 
> Will Keith and Lance ever get along? Tune in next chapter to find out! It’s rite there. U just gotta click the little… the arrow. If u want. K by.
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	3. Three - Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge and Hunk progress by leaps and bounds on the file drive. For Lance and Keith, baby steps will have to be good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway I’m pretty proud of a couple things in this chapter, it’s got a few lines I really enjoy, and I rly like the awkward early klance interactions, it’s one of my fave things to write.

A steady, incessant pounding woke Lance from his fitful slumber. He moaned pitifully, pulling the sheets up over his head as he burrowed further into the lumpy couch/bed.

“It’s Pidge! Wake the fuck up!” The pounding increased double time, and Lance figured she was now banging both fists against the door.

Where the hell was Keith? This was his house, wasn’t  _ he _ supposed to get the door when Pidge came knocking?

It took about ten more seconds for Lance to realise she wasn’t giving him any more sleep. He threw the covers off and stood, stomping to the door, intent on wrenching it open and silencing her. He wouldn’t be able to, as it turned out, because the door was barred by half a dozen individual lock mechanisms.

“God—give me a minute!” He barked as his undexterous fingers fumbled on the cool metal of the locks. She mercifully yielded, and after almost thirty seconds, he managed to yank it open.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” she teased, slipping past him without a moment’s hesitation.

“I brought breakfast,” Hunk added, holding up a box of donuts in one hand, coffees in the other.

Lance brought a hand to his chest, stepping back to let him through. “You own my heart, Hunk. Did you know that?” Hunk grinned, obliging the silent invitation.

“ _ Keith! _ ” Pidge shouted, marching back towards the bedrooms. She received a groan in response, something that sounded like it could be ‘I’m up,’ or perhaps ‘hang on,’ which did little to slow her roll.

“So,” Hunk singsonged, sauntering over to the kitchen, “how did last night go?”

“Oh  _ great _ ,” Lance replied as he followed, laying the sarcasm on thick, “we talked about our feelings, weaved friendship bracelets, then we made sweet strawberry love in front of a roaring fire.” He hopped up on the counter, running a hand through his hair to straighten it out.

Hunk chuckled, setting the breakfast down on the counter next to Lance. “That bad?”

Lance huffed. “Okay, like it wasn’t  _ terrible _ , but like… I just can’t  _ get _ this guy, you know? He refuses to fall for my boyish charm.”

Hunk picked a donut out of the box, starting to work at it. “So you’re mad because you can’t woo him?”

“Hunk, I am a charming person. I make people fall in love with me, it’s what I do—remember that librarian you pissed off back in the third grade?”

Hunk shuddered. “Mr. Robinson,  _ please _ don’t remind me.”

“And who not only got you unbanned from the library, but got your late fees totally pardoned? I’m charming, Hunky monkey. People  _ love _ to love me.”

“Chin up, Lance. Look at it this way: you insulted him and his whole life’s work for the past two years, and he still let you sleep in his house.”

Lance hummed thoughtfully, plucking a donut from the box too. Keith was a challenge, that’s for certain, but since when did Lance McClain back down from a challenge?

“Coffee?” Keith’s sleep-husky voice drifted over as he staggered into the room, Pidge trailing behind him.

“It’s alive!” She joked, as Hunk freed a coffee cup from the tray, handing it over to the new arrival. He mumbled his gratitude, eyes drifting shut as he tipped it back.

“No problem. Oh! I’ve been meaning to tell you: so last night I totally couldn’t sleep, I was way too excited thinking about the drive—honestly, it’s a genius design, practically tamper-proof. Plus, like,  _ way  _ more secure than a digital wipe alone—seriously, I’d like to meet whoever designed that thing and give them my sincerest—”

“Hunk.” Lance poked him with a toe.

“Sorry, sorry,” Hunk laughed. “Anyway, I got to thinking about the design, and I realised: ‘well hey, if I work backwards disabling the secondary chambers before the main mechanism, I can minimise the data loss—isolate it to one area.’ But then I thought to myself: ‘if I can disable the secondary mechanisms from being tripped, what’s to stop me from disabling the main mechanism in the same way?’ Assuming that the fluid in the chambers is ionic somehow—which it almost definitely is, by the way—that doesn’t give us much margin for error, and there’s the added complication of the scale that we’re going to be working at, which means we don’t really have the wiggle room to trip the mechanism and preserve the data by channeling away the liquid, but I’ve got a couple hypotheses I want to work through before we even get to considering damage relegation.”

Keith blinked owlishly over his steaming cup. “So…”

“He can do it,” Lance translated, having known Pidge and Hunk long enough to be a fairly efficient interpreter.

He smiled, turning to Hunk. “Thank you.”

“Thank  _ you _ ,” Hunk told him, “seriously, I’ve never seen this kind of ingenuity before, this attention to  _ detail _ .”

“One thing you’ve got to give to Galra,” Pidge contributed, “they got some of the biggest brains in the country on their teams.”

“Maybe,” Lance said, “but we’ve got you two, so I think we come out on top.”

Hunk smiled sheepishly. “Okay, one more donut, then I’ll start working my magic.”

* * *

“Do I…” Keith brushed at his bangs for the fifteenth time since they’d sat down, eyes nervously flitting around while never once settling, “do I look at  _ you _ , or the…” he gestured at the camera on Lance’s side.

“Eyes on me,” he confirmed, double-checking the focus on the lens before hitting ‘record.’ “Also you’ve got to relax, or something. Pretend like the camera isn’t there, like we’re just having a conversation.”

“I thought you wanted me to  _ relax _ ,” Keith grumbled, eyes still having trouble meeting Lance’s. He slouched further into the armchair, shrinking his body and not at all giving off the body language Lance was going for. “Do we  _ have _ to do this? You already know everything you need to, don’t you?”

Lance waved a dismissive hand, sitting at the edge of the coffee table and pulling up his list of questions on his phone. “Are you questioning my expertise? I’ve watched  _ The Office _ probably five times all the way through; I know what I’m doing. Now sit up, eyes up, and do something about your face.”

The aforementioned face scrunched up in confusion. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“You’ve got a resting bitch face, and that’s not going to fly if I’m trying to build you up as a sympathetic character. So just relax your—no, no that’s worse—you know what? Forget I even said anything.”

“Well I can’t forget  _ now _ ,” he protested, lip jutting out in a pout.

“It’s fine, we’ll make it work—it’s real, it’s  _ raw _ ,” he insisted, trying to convince himself of the same point. It was a good thing Keith was pretty, that might make this footage workable yet. “Okay for starters, tell me about yourself.”

“About… what do you want to know?”

“Anything, whatever you think is important. How do you define yourself?”

“Alright, um… I’m Keith, I’m twenty-one—”

“Eyes over here,” Lance interrupted, noticing Keith’s eyes slipping towards the camera.

Keith sighed, finally meeting Lance’s eyes again. “I’m Keith, I’m twenty-one, I’m Shiro’s little brother, and fuck, I don’t know, I work as a secretary at a vet clinic.”

Lance stored away that last part for later—but he was  _ definitely _ going to be shadowing Keith at work. “Did you grow up in Douglass?”

“Uh, yeah. I was born here, lived here ever since.”

“With your parents?”

“My dad,” Keith corrected.

“How old were you when you moved in with your aunt and uncle?”

Keith frowned. “Does it matter? Why do you need to know all this shit about me?”

Lance sighed. “Because you’re the subject for the documentary.”

“What? No I’m not—Shiro’s the subject, it’s his story!”

“No, Shiro’s the  _ object _ ,” he explained. “We’re seeing his story, but through your eyes. We’re getting your perspective on these things, so we need to get to know you—we need to be able to trust you.”

Keith folded his arms, slouching in the armchair once more. “I don’t care. People can believe what they want to believe, I’ll know the truth.”

“That’s not—” Lance groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Maybe I’ll just script you. That’ll make this  _ so _ much easier.”

Suddenly, cheers filtered in from the kitchen. Keith glanced at Lance, then shot up to his feet in pursuit of the sound. Lance hardly wasted a moment to follow suit, momentarily fumbling to unlatch the camera from the tripod before tailing him.

“‘Sup losers?” Pidge asked once they entered, sitting back in her chair and grinning proudly. “Take a look yourselves.” She nodded down to the table, the drive sitting neatly in the centre, surrounded by nearly a dozen identical vials stripped from its surface, every last one intact.

“No way,” Keith breathed, stepping forward and scooping the drive up in his hands, wearing the first grin Lance had seen on him all day. He scanned the top, then lifted it up to inspect the bottom. “I owe you guys  _ so much _ .”

“Yeah yeah, you can buy me a mansion later.” Pidge stood, reaching up to beckon it back. “We’re not done yet, though. I’ve still got to get past the software security.”

He relinquished it to her, emptied hands going to his hips. “How long’ll that take you?”

She set it down on the table, pulling out a clunky old laptop from her backpack. “Maybe like, five minutes? I learned to code on Galra software, this is like baby’s first security protocol to me.” She plugged the SSD into the laptop and cracked open the screen, dropping down into the chair and not wasting a moment before attacking the keyboard.

“Hey Keith?” Hunk asked, prompting the other to look up. “How did you even  _ get  _ this drive? Given the extent of protection they gave to one measly disk, I can’t imagine actually getting  _ in  _ the facility is any easier.”

Keith smirked. “Shiro hid it in the house.”

Pidge frowned at her screen. “I thought you said the police tore this place apart after he went missing.”

“They did—‘looking for evidence,’” he said to Lance and Hunk, accenting the words with air-quotes, “that was only my brother’s research files, and that all mysteriously went missing after. There were a few places they didn’t search at the time, though, because they knew it’d look suspicious. My room was one of them—and he must’ve  _ known  _ because that’s where he hid this, under my bed.”

Lance rolled his shoulder out, sore already from the heft of the camera, and stepped over to hand it to Hunk, who took it readily. “Shiro must’ve been a smart guy.”

Keith nodded. “He knew what he was up against,” he added somberly.

“And it took you two years to find it,” Pidge accused, “because you never clean your damn room.”

Lance laughed, and Keith blushed, stammering defensively. “It’s—I’ve had more important things to deal with!”

“You spent two years without a lead—no evidence to back up your theories—and you never thought to check under your bed.”

“I had evidence,” Keith protested, “I had his notebook.”

“You mean the notebook that made no sense?” Pidge retorted.

“It was obviously written in code.”

She shook her head. “Keith, I  _ know  _ code, that book was straight nonsense.”

“Can we see it?” Lance asked. “Maybe you could let old Lancey Lance take a crack at it.”

Keith raised an eyebrow, evaluating him for a moment before shrugging, stepping away. “Can’t hurt.”

“You obviously don’t know Lance,” Pidge called back, and Lance scuffed his foot on the leg of the table, jostling her workspace in retaliation for the quip. “Okay finally,” she hissed, “full disclosure, I can _ not _ work with him hovering over me like that.” Her keystrokes increased double-time as she attempted to maximise Keith’s time away. “He’s an even bigger distraction than you, Lance.”

He scoffed. “Screw that, I’m the  _ best  _ at distracting. Mama don’t do second place.” He rounded her chair, occupying the space over her shoulder that Keith had vacated moments ago to watch her work.

“You want nonsense?” Keith challenged, voice echoing from down the hall. Lance turned back at the sound of his voice, in time to catch him coming through the doorway, head bowed as he leafed through a notebook he cradled to his chest. When he reached the desired page, he declared a triumphant “Aha! How’s  _ that _ ?” He folded it open, holding it out for Lance to take.

Lance blinked, caught off-guard by Keith’s enthusiasm being directed towards him for once. Quick to recover, however, he took it, scanning the chicken scratch and vague diagrams scrawled across the lined surface in fading blue ink.

“Right, so tell me what I’m lookin’ at, Buzzfeed Unsolved.” Playing along, it would seem, was the easiest way to get Keith to not leap to the defensive, and right now Lance was more than willing to oblige that.

Keith moved in quickly, pressing up against Lance’s side to gesture eagerly at the page. “See this paragraph?” He tapped insistently on the topmost bundle of words, neat lines and margins having been recklessly abandoned by the author. “A few of the words are missing letters, and those missing letters can be rearranged to spell ‘ROYGBIV.’” His finger retracted, the hand going to Pidge’s chair and allowing him to lean over the page more. “The page number at the bottom is ‘five,’ but it’s not the fifth page in the notebook. The fifth colour of the rainbow? Blue.”

“You’re reaching,” Pidge taunted.

“And the colour he used to write this page?” He continued, words sharpening to talk over her interruption. “Blue,” he concluded, looking up at Lance expectantly.

Lance looked back to him. Big mistake. From this close up, Keith’s eyes seemed to shimmer in the warm light they caught, his cheeks still red from making his emphatic case. The two of them might have spent half their short acquaintance at each other’s throats, but that did anything but cancel out the fact that Keith was unfairly attractive, and Lance was notoriously weak for a pretty face.

Keith broke eye contact, and the brief moment was gone. Lance allowed himself to release a tiny breath, then replied. “So what I’m getting is…”

Yeah. He really got nothing.

“… Shiro and me have the same favourite colour?” He tried a meek smile on for size, and Keith made to snatch the notebook back. “Wait wait wait!” Lance leapt back, clutching the book against his chest. “Serious talk now, I’m putting on my serious face.” He furrowed his brow in demonstration, but fought an ultimately losing battle against his smile. “Let me just take a look through, alright? See if I can get anything.”

Keith sighed, turning his attention back to Pidge, and Lance took that as his assent. He nodded to beckon Hunk over, and held the book between them as they scanned through. What little Lance did manage to decipher of the scrawl ultimately made very little sense to him. Of course, with literally zero context, Lance knew he couldn’t hope to understand what was written even if it weren’t coded, but he thought he might as well try. Lance didn’t do well to sit idly and observe; he was a man of action, even if that action was inevitably for nothing.

“Finally,” Pidge exhaled, leaning back. “We’re in.” She stood up from the seat to cheers and congratulations, and Keith slid in in her place, chewing at a nail as he perused the folders. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to take a piss.”

“What a lady,” Lance jeered, and she snorted as she walked away.

“See anything interesting?” Hunk asked, leaving Lance with the book as he went to Keith’s other side.

Lance studied the current page, trying to make sense of it the way Keith had. The first letter of each sentence spelling out G-E-T— _ a word? _ —A— _ get a what? _ —W-C-O— _ okay, never mind _ . Jeez, it was hard trying to think like a lunatic.

“Not sure,” Keith muttered distractedly. “There’s so much on here, I don’t even know where to start.”

Lance glanced at the screen, his mounting frustration at the indecipherable book clashing with his natural-born stubbornness and ultimately winning out for a moment. His eye caught on a word he recognised. “Hey, start with Leo.”

Hunk and Keith both looked to him, the latter looking dubious. “Leo?”

“It’s what’s on this page,” he gestured accordingly, “I’ve seen it a few times.”

Keith turned back to the computer and double-clicked the indicated folder. A few dozen files lined themselves up down the screen, and he sat back, tapping his foot against the floor. “Any other suggestions?”

Lance scanned the book, looking for another buzzword. “Uh…” he looked up at the screen again, striking oil, “try ‘Aurora.’ Third from the bottom, ‘Project AURORA.’”

The moment Keith hit the enter key, the screen was filled with gore. At the sight of blood and sinew, Lance reflexively tore his gaze away, lifting the book to shield his eyes as Keith and Hunk did much of the same.

“Oh my god,” Hunk whimpered, a hand pressing to his temple to serve as a rudimentary blinder. “Oh my god, oh my god—what was that?!”

“You alright?” Lance soothed, furrowing his brow in concern for his best friend’s notorious squeamishness.

Hunk nodded while Keith spoke up, seeming not to have heard the other two. “Project AURORA,” he recited, “a study into inciting organic decay through biochemical intervention on living tissue.”

Lance steeled himself for a moment, then lowered his book to look back at the screen. He managed to resist the urge to flinch away once more, but the horror was just as unsettling. He might’ve struggled to understand the majority of the subheader, but ‘organic decay’ was certainly on full display in the innards of what Lance could only assume had been some sort of small mammal.

“I’m going to get the tripod,” Hunk informed, bowing his head low as he rushed out, clearly eager to give himself an excuse to step away.

“Thanks buddy.” Lance gave him a grateful smile before perching over Keith’s shoulder.

“What’s the book say?” Keith asked, continuing to scroll through the document.

He glanced back down to the book. “Security clearance beta, taskforce 47…” he skimmed for anything else of consequent.

Then it hit him.

“Go to page twenty-five— _ don’t give me that look _ , just do it.”

Wordlessly, Hunk re-emerged, grabbing the camera and setting it up obliquely across from the other two, out of sight of the computer screen. Keith scrolled as quickly as the old trackpad would allow him, finally arriving at the requested page.

“Where’s—oh here—‘security clearance for the following findings must only be given to senior researchers and above, under the strictest precautions. Outside the taskforce, Project AURORA must be referred/alluded to by this name and only this name. Should media intrigue arise, Project AURORA must be understood and communicated as a medical research endeavour into cures for degenerative diseases. Failure to adhere to such rules will result in the strictest penalties.’”

“Right here,” Lance replied, looking to Shiro’s notes. “‘Bioweapon creation.’”

“Holy shit,” Keith breathed.

“So from the shouting,” Pidge spoke, heads turning immediately to her form leaning against the doorframe, “I gather that something important happened.” Her hands went to her hips, and she strode purposefully towards the computer. “What’d I miss?”

Keith furrowed his brow, gaze falling to his lap. “I think Lance, uh… just solved the notebook.”

Her eyes flew wide, looking to Lance for confirmation. Lance empathised with her shock—did Keith just  _ compliment  _ him? He recovered quickly though, raising a hand in a shrug as he smiled smugly. “What can I say? It’s not easy being the resident genius, but I do my best.”

She rolled her eyes, turning back to the computer. “Fill me in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ouuu our bois actually starting to work together??? I wonder where this is going to go (jk we all know where this is going to go bc I’m wique for romance.)
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	4. Four - Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance shadows Keith at work. He learns a bit about Shiro, and more still about Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Domestic klance? Always good. Klance bickering? Also good. Backstory and plot? Damn, it’s almost as if I actually know how to write. When did that happen?

For the fifth time that morning, Lance’s phone alarm went off. And for the fifth time he hit snooze, not even bothering to drift into wakefulness before plunging right back into his dream.

“How many times are you going to  _ do  _ that?” Asked a voice that decidedly hadn’t come from Lance’s dream—Oscar Isaac did  _ not  _ sound like that—jolting him out of his slumber.

“Holy—!” He shot up to sit, clutching the blankets to his chest as he searched for the disembodied voice. He glanced sidelong, eyes finally landing on Keith, scrunched up in the armchair and balancing a bowl on his knees, watching Lance with tired eyes and a withering expression. “Jeez, were you watching me sleep? Cool it Edward, this isn’t Forks.”

Confusion passed over Keith’s features. “What?”

Lance huffed, rubbing away the sleep in his eyes as he leaned an elbow into his pillow. “Edward Cullen.  _ Twilight _ ? Come on man, you look like an extra from the movie, you can’t tell me that you don’t know  _ Twilight _ .”

“Why are you so loud?” Keith winced. “It’s way too early in the morning for you to be  _ that  _ loud.”

“ _ You’re _ telling  _ me _ ? I was doing just fine fast asleep, you’re the one who woke me up by watching me, all creepy-like.”

“I wasn’t  _ watching you _ ,” Keith insisted. “I always eat my breakfast in here.”

Lance rolled his eyes, still far too sleepy to hold up this debate. He threw the covers off and pushed to stand, lazily dragging himself to the bathroom so he could start to get ready.

He’d just begun brushing his teeth when he heard his name echo through the house.

“Lance! Get out here, you need to see this!”

“Hang on!” He called back.

“No, you need to come  _ now _ ,” Keith insisted, sounding almost elated through his frustration. “ _ Right now _ .”

Lance huffed, toothbrush hanging from his lips as he trudged back to the front room. Keith was fumbling with the locks one-handed, a coffee mug in the other, waving him over as the only indication he’d even been aware of Lance’s presence.

“What?” Lance demanded.

“Just—” he finally threw the door open, stepping barefoot out onto the porch “—wait.”

Lance moved into the threshold, suppressing a shiver as the early-morning air hit him. He scanned the lawn in front of him, the road that stretched across, the trees that blocked his view of anything else, finding nothing.

So he looked to Keith, mug cradled in both hands just below his face, eyes affixed to something off to their right. Lance brought a hand up to continue his brushing, and Keith momentarily broke his focus to send him a derisive look.

There was movement out the corner of Lance’s eye, and they both snapped back to attention. From behind a curtain of trees peeked out a van, putting its way slowly around the bend and into sight. Black block lettering on the side of the van read ‘DOUGLAS PLUMBING,’ which seemed to slow further as it pulled in front of their driveway. Lance glanced back to judge Keith’s response, and Keith’s eyes had been narrowed into a dangerous glare, firmly fixed on the driver.

Lance flicked his gaze to the driver, who was staring back at Keith, presumably with much the same intensity. A chill went down Lance’s spine as he watched their silent standoff, surprised to find himself praying that the van wouldn’t stop.

And then it was over. The driver turned straight ahead, seeming to relocate their gas pedal and peeling down the road once more.

Keith watched intently until it was out of sight. “Still think I’m crazy?” He brushed past Lance to go back inside.

Lance scoffed, following and shutting the door behind them both. “To be fair, I was already sold by the time we found out your brother was conducting research on chemical weapons.”

* * *

“Do they do that every morning?”

“Hm?” Keith’s eyes didn’t lift from the road speeding by ahead, but his brow furrowed in question.

“The van—the cops—Galra— _ whoever _ that was,” Lance explained, unsettled by the peaceful silence they’d been sitting in for the duration of the car ride thus far (Keith refused to play his own music in front of Lance—which spoke volumes about his music taste in Lance’s opinion—and had pre-emptively banned Lance from both the AUX cord and the radio,) and no longer able to bear it.

His face lit up in comprehension. “Oh, not anymore. Now it’s probably once a week or so.” He eased the car towards the exit lane on the highway, and Lance tried not to let his relief show (Keith was a  _ very  _ scary driver. For someone who was convinced the police were monitoring him, he sure as hell didn’t drive like it.)

“So they used to?” Keith nodded, and Lance pursed his lips. “You’d think they’d be more subtle about watching your every move, not just…” He thought back to their encounter this morning, and his skin crawled, “do that.”

“I used to think the same thing. At first, they’d pretend to be delivering a package and knock on my door. Then when I answered they’d say they got the wrong address and drive off.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “How do you know it wasn’t?”

“Probably because the first time I didn’t answer, they busted down my door,” he answered casually.

Lance’s jaw dropped, eyebrows shooting up as he turned to gape at Keith. Keith returned the gaze momentarily, expression even.

“They wanted it to look like a break-in, finish what they started without raising suspicion. They went right for my room and didn’t expect to see me there, and they ran. Of course, the cops already knew they were coming, so when I called them…” he trailed off. “Anyway, after that, I thought they’d give up, or get better at hiding, or something but…”

“But?” Lance prompted.

Keith shrugged, turning the car into a strip mall parking lot. “You saw. They’re not trying to hide; they’re trying to intimidate me.”

Lance couldn’t even argue against that. He saw it with his own eyes.

“We’re here,” Keith announced, shutting off the car. “I haven’t told my boss about this, by the way, so don’t disturb any shit or you’re walking back to Douglas.” He unclipped and stepped out.

“Keith!” Lance threw a hand against his chest, rushing to do the same so he’d have enough time to grab his bags without being left in his dust. “They’ll still let me see the kitties though, right? Keith?”

Surprisingly, Keith stood by patiently on the curb while Lance piled on his equipment bags, locking the car with the remote once the door had been kicked shut. He tailed Keith as best he could, thankful for him demonstrating a modicum of mercy and holding open the front door for him.

“Allura?” He called, flipping the sign in the front door from ‘closed’ to ‘open.’

“You’re on time!” A reply floated back, the speaker lifting their head up to reveal themselves from behind the front counter and…

Holy shit. Keith worked with an actual goddess.

She smiled mischievously at Lance, hands coming back to twirl long locks into a high bun. “ _ Oh _ , no one told me it was ‘take your boyfriend to work day,’ Keith.” She thread her fingers together and rested her chin on them, smirking over at Keith now.

“Shut up,” Keith muttered, bowing his head as he trudged over towards her. “He’s  _ not  _ my boyfriend.”

Lance sloughed his many bags off onto the waiting chairs, quickly stepping up and extending a hand out to her, putting on his winning grin. “The name’s Lance, you might recognise me from your dreams. And you are?”

“Buddy,” Keith scoffed, rounding the counter and settling behind the desk hidden underneath, “you are barking up the wrong tree.”

She glanced at Keith sidelong. “I’m certain Keith wouldn’t mind you barking up  _ his  _ tree—”

Keith slapped a hand down on the desk. “Okay—Allura?” His cheeks were bright red, and Lance couldn’t help but snort, retracting his offered hand to hide his smile. “This is Lance. He’s a friend of a friend, and he’s going to be filming some shit today.”

Lance laughed, hands going to his hips. “You got me! I’m studying film in college right now, and I’m doing a project on Keith, so I’m going to be shadowing him at work.”

Keith waved a hand at his workmate. “This is Allura. She’s one of our vet techs, and as of a minute ago, both of us are on the clock.”

He held both hands up in surrender. “Alright, message received. I’ll set up and get out of your hair. You guys won’t even notice me.”

* * *

“Old Village Vet, how can I help you?” Keith greeted over the phone, mouth forced into a tight smile as he activated his customer service voice. “Mhm.”

He nodded as he scratched something down on a notepad, and Lance leaned over him, trying to get a good shot of his work with his handheld DSLR—this might’ve just been extra footage, but Lance had more than enough time to afford to be meticulous. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

“Yes, yes it’s—I’m sorry, could you excuse me for a second? Thanks.” He tilted the receiver away from his mouth, covering the mouthpiece with a hand. “Hey asshole,” he hissed, and Lance snapped up to look at him, brow knitted and lips downturned yet again, “I’m trying to work here—not sure you noticed—so could you stop taking pictures of my hands?”

Keith obviously didn’t understand the whole ‘filming you’ thing involved having a camera pointed in your direction, but Lance didn’t have the patience to teach him now if no one else had bothered to prior.

Instead of answering, he asked a question of his own, lowering his eye back to the viewpiece. “Did you know you’re ambidextrous? You keep switching the hand you write with.”

“Did—? No, Lance, I had no idea. You’ve opened my fucking eyes,” he deadpanned. “Can’t you just go bother Allura or something?” He brought the phone back to his ear, turning away from Lance and effectively closing off any further discussion.

Lance straightened, huffing. He’d been trying to get some good footage of Keith for almost two hours now, and it was ending up to be just as exhausting as it was fruitless. He had no doubt that Allura would be a more interesting subject to shadow right now. He packed up his DSLR and slid it under Keith’s desk, exchanging one bag for the other and carting it with him to the back room.

He knocked on the open backroom door, peeking his head in to grace Allura with a smile. “Mind if I join you?” He asked, striding in and towards her.

She perched herself on a stool, halfway turned to make use of the counter behind her as a writing surface for some patients’ folders. “Did you get kicked out?”

He pouted, setting his heavy bag on a chair with a groan. “We made a mutual decision to give each other a break.”

She smiled knowingly, setting down her pen. “Well then, is there something I can help you with?”

Lance laughed, relieved to finally not have to pull teeth. “Actually, yeah. Mind if I do an interview?”

She motioned to the bag. “By all means.” 

He grinned, rushing to set the camera up on the tripod. “It won’t be anything too hard, just a couple questions about asian Gerard Way out there.”

She snorted. “On that, and pardon me if this is an odd question, but why Keith? I know for a fact it isn’t his customer service skills.”

He hit ‘record,’ pulling a chair up beside the camera. “Less Keith, more his brother.”

Her smile dimmed, eyes flicking downward momentarily before meeting his again. “Ah, Shiro.”

Lance nodded, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Did you know him?”

“Yes. We weren’t terribly close, but I knew him for many years. Their family’s cat was one of our favourite patients, way back when I was just a volunteer. It seems so trivial now—”

“It’s not,” Lance assured. “So you knew Shiro and Keith’s parents?” She nodded. “What can you tell me about them?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you a whole lot. They were kind people, very patient, and fed their cat like she was a horse.”

They shared a laugh. “Do you know why Keith doesn’t live with them now?”

“As long as I’d known Keith, he’d been living with Shiro. Shiro was the one who introduced us—in fact, he was the one who got Keith this job.”

Lance quirked an eyebrow. “Really, now?”

“He looked after him,” she offered in explanation, “I don’t think Keith would’ve done it without his help, you know?” Lance gave her a questioning look. “Because of the autism.”

He blinked. “Wait, Keith’s autistic?”

She cocked her head to the side. “You hadn’t noticed?”

“I…” Lance paused to think. He really hadn’t, but a number of Keith’s quirks suddenly made a lot more sense in context. “Huh.”

“He had a hard time adjusting because of it,” she explained, “especially since his job involves phones and dealing with customers. But we helped him, and he learned, and now he’s the best damn secretary we’ve had. No one can handle an angry pet parent like him, he’s tough as they come.”

Lance nodded. “And what was it like when he lost Shiro?” He asked softly.

Her smile lost whatever remaining will it had to stay. “Hard. On everyone who knew Shiro, definitely, but especially on him. His parents moved away—they couldn’t stay in Douglas any longer—and they begged him to go with them, but again, he has a hard time dealing with change.”

“So he stayed?”

“So he stayed.”

“So wait,  _ Shiro  _ was the one with the cabin in the woods at first?”

She huffed a gentle laugh, and he welcomed it, glad to diffuse a little tension. “Is he still on his little conspiracy theory?”

“Well…” Lance decided if Keith hadn’t told her about the new evidence, it wasn’t his place to do so. “I wouldn’t be here if he had, now would I?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I suppose not.”

“What do you think of it?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Which part, that Shiro was murdered, that Galra did it, or that the authorities are now going after Keith?”

He hid his wince. In all fairness, he’d thought about the exact same thing until he’d seen it for himself. “Well, all of it. Any of it.”

“I don’t doubt that Shiro was murdered—after being gone for two years, that’s only logic—but the rest of it? I’m not so convinced. Grief can make you think some crazy things, especially for someone as naturally distrusting as Keith.”

“I can only imagine. Don’t you think the people responsible should be held accountable, though?”

“Naturally, but in small towns like Douglas…” she pursed her lips, obviously searching for the right words. “This happens more often than you think. The police simply don’t have the resources to conduct big investigations, so cases like these fall to the wayside. More than anything, really, I want Keith to find closure.” Allura’s phone chimed, and she pulled it from a labcoat pocket, smiling politely at Lance after taking a moment to read it. “I’m afraid any further questions will have to wait. I have a date with a golden lab’s testicles, and I cannot be late.”

Lance snorted, standing and packing his camera up. “Well I won’t keep you, but if that falls through, maybe you and I could grab dinner sometime.” He flashed her a charming smile, waggling his eyebrows.

She smiled back, almost patronising. “I don’t date.”

He folded up the tripod while maintaining eye contact, undeterred. “Well hey, neither do I, maybe we could try it out together.”

She rolled her eyes, shooing him with her files. “Out.”

* * *

After work, Keith drove them back into town, to the Holt residence in a sleepy suburb. Lance noted the ‘For Sale’ sign in the front lawn as they walked up, but didn’t inquire on it; after what Allura told him about Keith’s parents, he could imagine it wasn’t easy for the Holts to stay in Douglas for as long as they already had.

They were greeted warmly by Pidge’s parents, shared a home-cooked dinner with her family, then the of them retreated up to Pidge’s room with she and Hunk to catch one another up on the events of the day.

“Lance struck out with Allura,” Keith began, lying back on Pidge’s carpet and staring up at the ceiling.

“Did not,” he protested, propped up on his elbows on Pidge’s bed and picking idly at the frills of a throw pillow, “you cut me off before I could even start putting the moves on her.” Hunk snorted at his side, and Lance thwacked him with the pillow in retaliation.

“She told me about the interview at lunch,” Keith replied.

Lance rolled his eyes. “She’ll come around.”

“Alright,” Pidge interrupted the spat before it could gain traction, opening her antique laptop from where she sat at her desk, “well while Lance was striking out, and Keith was acting moody—yes, Lance was snapchatting me, Keith—Hunk and I made some interesting discoveries.”

Keith sat up to look at her. “Like what?”

“We found coordinates!” Hunk announced jubilantly, earning a stern eye from Pidge. “Oh, did—did you want to tell him?” He smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I just got so excited.”

“Coordinates?” Lance asked. “To where?”

Pidge typed away, strategically opening a number of files. “We haven’t had the time to check—plus we wanted to save some of it for when you two got here—but there were four sequences that kept repeating in the files we looked through. Actually, it was my brother, Matt, who realised they were coded numbers.”

“So Pidge and me decoded them,” Hunk continued, “and here we are. It seems like the four places separate four different categories of secret experiments they did.”

“What are they?” Keith asked.

Hunk and Pidge glanced between each other, a wordless communication that ultimately resulted in the decision to let Pidge tell them. “We classified them under ‘biochemical weapons’—experiments like AURORA—‘biological enhancements,’ ‘illegal pharmaceutical experimentation,’ and…” She paused, glancing at Keith. “Human experimentation.”

Lance’s eyebrows shot up. “Human exper—” He cut himself off when he realised Keith was asking the same thing. Keith trailed off too, the two of them glancing at each other in an awkward silence, before Keith turned back to Pidge.

“Do we know which ones Shiro worked on?”

Hunk shifted next to Lance on the bed. “Given the security clearances, we’re assuming he either worked on all of them, or just the last one.”

Keith bowed his head, hands fiddling in his lap. “Mm.”

Lance frowned. “Well hey, that’s all the stuff he was trying to stop, right?” Keith looked up to him, and he offered a warm smile.

“Lance is right,” Hunk said. “You said it yourself: Shiro was trying to expose Galra for what they were doing. He obviously knew who the bad guys were.”

Keith nodded, pushing to stand. “I guess all that’s left is to find these research facilities, then.” He walked over to Pidge’s desk, leaning back against it.

“Ooh,” Lance cooed, “are we going to have a little field trip?”

“No,” Hunk replied immediately, “we’re not eight anymore, Lance. Now if we try to trespass, we’d actually get arrested.”

“Well…” Pidge started.

“Pidge, no. You two always try to rope me into your harebrained schemes, but it’s not going to work this time.”

Keith scoffed. “So what do you suggest we do, tell the cops?”

Hunk sighed. “Okay well… no, but—okay Pidge? There’s no  _ way  _ your parents will let us go around exploring top-secret research facilities!”

“They will if we don’t tell them,” she insisted, almost dared.

“Huuunk,” Lance crooned, grabbing his nearby shin and jostling it playfully, “don’t be a party pooper.”

He shook Lance’s hand off. “It’s  _ illegal _ ,” he insisted, although Lance could tell his resolve was already crumbling.

“Not if we don’t get caught,” Keith refuted.

“And we won’t,” Lance assured. “Hunk, I am the expert of sneaking around and not getting caught. A maximum security prison ain’t got nothing on my parents, and did we ever  _ once  _ get caught by them growing up?”

Hunk groaned, hiding his face in his hands. “We are  _ so dead _ .”

Lance grinned, clapping him on the knee. “That’s the spirit, buddy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, standing naked outside DreamWorks HQ at 3:52 AM, banging pots and pans together and shouting at the overnight custodians who are probably the only ones left in the building: LET KEITH AND ALLURA BE SALTY BESTIES YOU FUCKS!!!!!!!!  
> I’m out here producing the Keith+Allura BFFL content I crave be the change you wish to see in the world goddamn???????  
> The next chapter is gay. I mean so’s the whole fic but… it’s more concentrated gay.
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	5. Five - Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance turn in for the night. Lance takes a chance, extends an olive branch, and gets a little more back than he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The best kind of writing is writing that is at once self-indulgent and plot-driving. A little bit of arc A, a lot of arc B, and Lance is analogous to me in the bookstore when I fell in love with a pretty cashier there (Alessia if ur reading this… first of all thanx for reading my klance fic, second when I said I really liked ur hair I meant it in a gay way… third of all when u said u liked my hair 2 it rocked my world, and fourth I know I’m tiny but I wanna punch a bear for ur honour and honestly I would if u asked js. Okay enough of my love letter to the bookstore cashier I have a crush on, now onto the klance u guys are actually here for.)

Lance wiped his sweating palms against his pyjama pants for the umpteenth time, staring down the door before him as though he could knock it down by force of will alone. He took one last steeling breath—telling himself one last time that he really has no reason to be so nervous, why the hell was he so nervous?—before softly rapping a knuckle against the wood.

“What’s up?” Keith asked through the door.

Lance cleared his throat, not wanting his voice to crack and show his apprehension. “Mind if I come in?”

A hesitation, then: “Sure, the door’s open.”

Lance pushed the door open, finding Keith lounged back on his bed, shutting his laptop and setting it aside. “Hey.”

“Uh, hey,” Keith replied, frowning, and Lance wondered if it was from disappointment or mere confusion.

Lance broke eye contact first for once, eyes dropping to the ground to ensure he didn’t eat shit on his way over to the bed. Keith had cleaned up a bit, his papers now in piles as opposed to spread across the ground, making the trip a lot less perilous. “I have something for you.” He made it to the bedside, looking up at Keith again. “Not—it’s just—” he floundered, cheeks burning at Keith’s surprised expression. He dug his hand into his pocket, fishing out his offering and brandishing it. “Here.”

Keith’s eyes travelled down the length of his arm, settling on the quadrifolded papers in his hand. He took it gingerly, unfolding it and skimming the first page. “This is…”

“It’s a script. Uh, of sorts.” Lance rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to physically force his tongue to slow to prevent the nervous ramble he could feel brewing in his chest. “I figured it’d be easier for you to do the interviews if you had a little bit of guidance. You can—” he tapped a finger on the page “—do like a fill-in-the-blanks, or whatever. Like a conspiracy theory Mad Libs,” he chuckled at his own joke, rubbing at the back of his neck, “and say it how you want to, whatever your comfortable with sharing. It’s not a rulebook, more like a guideline, and…” he trailed off, keenly waiting for Keith to finish reading and react.

Keith glanced up in his direction momentarily, a small smile breaking through as he flipped to the second side. “Thanks, Lance. This’ll really help.”

“It’s no big deal, just something I threw together at lunch. I, uh…” He gently sat on the edge of Keith’s bed by his feet, and turned obliquely to face him. “I realise I was being kind of inconsiderate with the interviews—I was thinking of it the way I’d want to handle it, instead of thinking of the way you might.”

“You definitely don’t need any help to run your mouth,” Keith joked, and Lance allowed himself to laugh once he deemed there was no hint of disdain in the comment.

“What can I say? I was gifted with a silver tongue and a spring-loaded jaw.” Keith snorted. “Allura told me, uh, about how you’re autistic.” Keith’s smile threatened to wean as he looked up at Lance once more, and Lance threw his hands up to defend. “Not—it’s cool. Or—not  _ cool  _ but—I mean that I understand. I’m ADHD, so I totally get how it feels when people expect you to be better than you are at some things. And I mean… I didn’t want you to think I was trying to be a dick, I was just being dumb.”

“It’s not dumb,” Keith assured, “it’s… I guess you could say you weren’t paying attention.”

“Was that a joke?” Keith shrugged. “Keith, it’s a  _ disability _ ,” Lance insisted, playing up his offense, “you can’t joke about my disability!”

“Alright, so since you decided to be nice, I guess I can try too.” He folded the pages back, pulling his legs up to cross beneath him and looking up at Lance. “Allura told me you wanted to know some stuff about Shiro, so… I could like—tell you stuff, I don’t know. Maybe give you a sense of what you’re going to be diving into.”

Lance grinned. “Really? Yeah, that’d be awesome!”

“Do you want to get your camera?”

Lance’s eyebrows shot up. “Would you mind?”

“‘S what you’re here for, I’m good with it.”

Lance shot to his feet, speaking over his shoulder as he scrambled to the door. “Alright. I’ll be right—” he slipped on a folder he’d not been looking out for, sending a pile of papers tumbling down in his effort to right himself. “Shit, sorry, I’ll—I’ll pick that up!” He promised as he finally made it through the door, slamming it behind him.

_ Well that was… something _ , he thought. He pressed a hand to his cheek, the skin flaming beneath the pads of his fingertips. His heart fluttered in his chest, an all-too-familiar, dangerous staccato. He sped up his pace away from Keith’s room, waiting until he rounded the corner and was out of earshot before hanging his head and letting out a soft groan.

If there was one thing Lance did well, it was fall in love. He fell fast, and he fell hard, and once he fell it was damn near impossible for him to get back out. Usually he had no problem with it—yeah, he’d get flustered at times and sometimes maybe fumble, and on more than one occasion he’d strike out, but he’d emerge not much worse for wear—but this time it felt different.

For starters, the two of them had started off on anything but the right foot—hell, they’d basically been down each other’s throats until ten minutes ago. They just did not seem to gel a lot of the time, fighting over meaningless drivel (Keith vowing to flush Lance’s toothbrush down the toilet if he left it on the edge of the sink again,) but also over important issues (see above: Lance insulting everything Keith’d worked for these past two years.)

Of course, animosity didn’t necessarily preclude  _ physical  _ intimacy—Lance was familiar with the term ‘hatefuck,’ if not experienced in the practice—but that wasn’t what this was. It might’ve started with physical attraction (and despite Keith putting precisely zero effort into his appearance he was  _ definitely  _ nothing to sneeze at,) but this… didn’t feel like that anymore. Maybe it was empathy pulling at his heart, he reasoned. Maybe it was seeing how such a terrifying and unthinkable prospect for Lance realise in front of his own eyes.

But he knew that wasn’t it either. It was an easy explanation, but not the truth. The truth was… Keith could be happy. He smiled, cracked jokes, got needlessly defensive when he was being teased, and all of that was a testament to his strength when you considered everything he’d been going through. This was what Lance had seen in  _ three days _ with the guy, he couldn’t imagine what else he’d unearth in the week to come. Or… in the next few minutes.

That’s right, he was supposed to be getting a camera, wasn’t he?

He quickly made it back to the front room, snatching his bag from where it rested against the folded-out couch and turning face to high-tail it back to Keith’s room, hoping he’d not allowed his mind to wander for too long.

When he got back, Keith was kneeling by the pile Lance’d knocked over, pushing it back into the tiny tower that had ere stood. When he noticed Lance he scrambled back to his feet, bowing his head and brushing away the bangs that fell into his eyes out of consequent.

“Hey, I said I’d do that,” Lance protested, half-joking, half-apologetic.

Keith waved a dismissive hand. “It’s fine, you—your camera has to go somewhere, plus this place is…” he quickly glanced around the room, grimacing, “a mess,” he admitted.

Lance laughed, shrugging it off for Keith’s benefit as he stepped carefully around his work. “It’s all good man. I share an apartment with  _ Pidge _ , so this mess is nothing.” He set the bag down on the edge of Keith’s bed to start unpacking, and Keith wandered over to hover a few feet away.

“So uh… where do you want to…”

Lance resisted the urge to sigh, wondering if he was ever going to get Keith to relax around him when he was pointing a lens at his face half the time. “The bed’s fine, just like you were before.”

“You sure that’ll look alright?”

“When did  _ you  _ become the expert on film?” Lance flashed him a coy smirk before turning away, tripod in hand. “And before you answer, I’m pulling your leg, Keith.”

“I—I  _ knew  _ that,” Keith grumbled.

Lance laughed, turning back to attach the camera to the now-set tripod. “But seriously, let me worry about the shots and everything, just relax and be yourself in front of the camera.”

“I can try,” he offered.

“Right, then as you were.” He spun on his heel, shooing Keith back towards the bed.

With noticeable trepidation, Keith returned to his spot, and Lance adjusted the frame and focus accordingly. Once he hit ‘record,’ he rounded the bed—pulling his bag onto the floor in passing—and clambered over next to Keith on the other side.

While Lance took the time to settle, stretching his legs out parallel to Keith’s and turning to adjust the pillow he leaned against, Keith reached out to his laptop, pulling it back atop his legs as he turned his head halfway to Lance.

“I was looking through some old photos when you came in, actually. And I thought… maybe we can look through them together.” He rested both hands against the aluminum lid, showcasing the backs of the fraying fingerless gloves he wore almost constantly.

Lance looked back to him, grinning. “Please tell me you have old, embarrassing photos of Pidge, because that would make my whole year.”

Keith snorted, opening up the computer and typing a quick password to unlock it. “You have no idea the dirt I have on Pidge. She’ll kill me for showing you, but she’s in a lot of the photos anyway, so it’s sort of unavoidable.” 

The short moments Lance was afforded to observe Keith’s profile photo and background betrayed nothing personal, unfortunately (part of Lance was still curious as to why Keith was so secretive about his music taste,) but soon enough he maximised a file folder that filled the screen with thumbnails of home photos, a gallery of snapshots capturing someone else’s intimate memories. They came in a variety of dimensions, source apparatus, and subject matter, and for once Lance felt urged to hold his tongue, to listen raptly to the story Keith would weave around them.

He scrolled to the top with a deft swipe on the trackpad, double-clicking on the first photo there. A young boy was framed in portrait, round cheeks pinched from an almost toothless grin as he posed for a picture with a bundled newborn cradled in his arms. 

“I’ve known Shiro for longer than I can remember,” Keith’s voice was soft, its timbre crackling in his throat like the dying embers of a fire. It made Lance lean in, straining to hear and distantly hoping his microphone would catch the sound over the near-deafening silence surrounding them.

He tapped the keyboard and the screen changed, now a photo of a slightly less rotund Shiro leaning down to rest a hand on an obviously recently bipedal Keith, squinting against the low sun that illuminated them and the playground they stood before.

“He was like my superhero growing up. I guess it’s like that with all older siblings.” Lance had mixed feelings on that assertion but he kept quiet, remembering that this was Keith’s story to tell. “Top of his class, captain of the football team, full scholarship to the best university in the state…”

Another keystroke, another photo: this time, a teenaged Shiro kneeling on a turf field in his football uniform, his face starting to shape into the one Lance had first seen on Keith’s corkboard.

“Everyone who knew him loved him, and he knew  _ everyone _ ; the whole town was his best friend. All the parents wished for a son like him, and every kid wanted to grow up to be him.”

“Did you?” Lance asked softly, looking up at Keith now.

Keith didn’t return his gaze, brow furrowing as his eyes flicked across the screen, scrutinising a photo he had no doubt seen a thousand times. “I… I don’t think I ever could.” He smiled sadly, shrugging. “I wasn’t the kind of kid Shiro was. I wasn’t good with other people, always got in trouble, didn’t—” He pushed his bangs away “—didn’t do what I was supposed to.”

Lance hummed thoughtfully, looking back to the display as it switched again, now Shiro and Keith sitting at a dinner table in front of a cake for (Lance would assume from the candles on the cake and the two brothers’ appearance) Keith’s tenth birthday. Shiro wore what Lance could now safely assume was his signature grin, and Keith smiled meekly from beneath the beginnings of what would become his mullet.

“But he didn’t see it that way. He saw the best in me, saw something no one else did. He never got mad at me for pulling stupid shit, supported me through everything…” 

Another photo: a new Shiro, the same sidecut Lance had recognised was now accented by a shock of white in the forelock that nearly fell over a healing gash slashed across his nose, had one arm around Keith’s waist. The other—now a glinting silver with mechanic joints from fingertip to some point hidden beneath his t-shirt sleeve—rested on his own hip. The two of them stood before their living room, the unseen photographer standing in the front threshold to capture Shiro’s wide grin and Keith’s laughing face turning away from the camera as he tried (and failed) to push Shiro away.

“He never gave up on me.”

And there was a lot unsaid hanging off that sentence, indicated in how it petered out as if unfinished, even after the words stopped falling from his lips.  _ He never gave up on me, even though he should have. He never gave up on me, even after everyone else had. _

_ He never gave up on me, even when I did. _

Keith’s eyes had fallen away from the screen, to the fingers that rested too gently against the keys to depress any one of them. Lance’s went to his face, studying its profile under the shadows cast where the warm light of his bedside lamp couldn’t reach, under the harsh, cold luminescence of the laptop screen. His eyes nearly seemed to glisten tearfully in its light, against the shadows cast on his cheekbones, and Lance wondered if he’d feel better or worse if Keith actually  _ was  _ crying. He wondered if it was worse instead for such a painful loss to feel so commonplace that it no longer moved you to tears.

“So you never gave up on him,” Lance murmured, providing a conclusion of his own to Keith’s sentiment. Keith practically started when he finally spoke up, wide eyes quickly locking onto his and mouth parting as he processed what Lance had said.

“I…” His shoulders drew in, hands tightening into fists over the keyboard. His brow furrowed over stormy eyes, but he never once looked away. “I can’t give up on him,” he insisted, voice barely above a breath.

The two of them were close, practically shoulder-to-shoulder, allowing Lance to catch the torrent of emotion brewing in Keith’s eyes. The deep brown of his irises was washed of its richness by the harsh light of the screen, like a photo that’s been overexposed: too much light coming through the aperture, becoming a display of so much of everything that no single feature could take discernible form. The weight of his stare pressed deep into Lance’s chest, his lungs seizing while his heart raced in a vain attempt to remedy the former.

They were so close, Lance could feel the heat coming off of Keith on his entire near side, could feel how his muscles had tensed yet again when the mattress creaked below them both. He felt the urge to remedy that surge through him and settle in his own shoulders, the sensation branching down his arm to fingers that itched to reach out and press to Keith’s cheek, to soothe the tension out of his jaw with gentle, tender strokes. Fingers that itched, too, to tilt their faces closer together, to guide Keith’s lips to his own.

Bad timing. Really,  _ really _ bad timing.

Lance closed his eyes and released a slow breath, nodding gently. “Thank you, Keith.” When he reopened his eyes, Keith’s were trained back on the computer screen, his expression unreadable. “It’s getting late,” Lance started, sliding off the bed and pushing to stand, “I’ll let you get some sleep.”

“Are you sure?” The question sounded timid, but Lance couldn’t build up the courage to look back after what had just been running through his mind, opting instead to round his way back to his camera with his head bowed. “I have more photos, if you… if it’ll help.”

Lance smiled, stopping the recording and folding up the tripod, camera still attached. “That’d be great, but you’ve got to get up at the asscrack of the morning, and since we’re being nice to each other now I’m not going to keep you up any later.”

Keith gave a thoughtful hum. “Tomorrow, then?” Lance nodded. “Don’t forget I’m dropping you off in the morning, so you have to be up when I’m up,” he added, a bit more confident this time.

Lance rolled his eyes, grabbing the empty camera bag with the hand that wasn’t currently trying to balance a topheavy tripod. “No promises,” he teased, gracing Keith with a wink before spinning on his heel towards the doorway.

Keith scoffed. “Then you’re walking into town.”

“ _ Goodniiight _ ,” he singsonged, hooking a foot around the door to pull it shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance’s brain: “Kiss the Girl” as performed by Samuel Wright, written and composed for Walt Disney’s 28th animated feature film The Little Mermaid (1989)  
> Lance: wtf no he’s talking about his dead brother right now shut up
> 
> I can’t believe I wrote a sentence with “ere” in it. Legit when’s the last time you saw someone use that word in fiction??? Much less fanfiction????
> 
> Also highkey lowkey made a reference to FOB lyrics. Don’t even judge me
> 
> And THUS…. The pining commences. Like, explicitly. Lance was 2 dumb to see his pining before now.
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	6. Six - Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance tries to grapple with his newfound feelings for Keith, and his friends don’t make that easy on him. Pidge’s older brother makes his contribution to Lance’s narrative and, in turn, the story itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I make Lance suffer because I too suffer. I cope with my own personal issues by projecting onto fictional characters, which honestly is one of my most healthy coping strategies, and I think my therapist would be happy to hear that if I had the courage to tell him I write voltron fanfic but I’m a coward so… (Norm if ur reading this first of all thanx for reading my kla--

Lance was woken up by a harsh kick to the foot of his couch—which ironically made up the head of his bed—and an oh-so-affectionate “let’s go, we’re leaving in twenty!” And if that weren’t cruel enough, Lance was forced to oblige when his stupid heart fluttered at the prospect of seeing Keith’s bedhead again.

Stupid Keith, and stupid Lance for getting a stupid crush on stupid Keith.

* * *

“We have a problem.” Lance hardly waited for Hunk to step away before pushing through the doorway, dropping his bag to the floor and launching himself headlong into the unmade bed.

“Laaaance,” Pidge croaked from somewhere within the mass of blankets and sheets.

“Piiidge,” he mimicked, digging under the covers and hooking his arms and legs around her.

“Gross! Get off me,” she slurred, lazily kicking at his legs and pushing against his chest, struggling weakly against his hold.

“I’m in crisis! Is this how you treat a man in crisis, Pidge?”

“Shove over,” Hunk mumbled, the bed behind Lance dipping as he joined the other two. Lance obliged—pushing Pidge along with him—and a second later a warm arm slung itself across his waist.

“Were you two  _ seriously _ still sleeping?”

“Shh,” Pidge hushed, having finally abandoned the struggle against his koala hug. “My ears can only handle half-Lance volume right now. Preferably zero.”

Lance huffed, but toned it down as best he could. “And you two gave me such shit on Sunday—whatever. Like I said, crisis situation, defcon five, guys.”

“Oh, so just like all your emergencies, then,” Hunk replied.

“By the way, five is the lowest level,” Pidge explained the insult.

“ _ Fine _ , then it’s defcon a hundred—could you guys just help me?”

“Did Keith throw you out?” Pidge asked.

“No,” Lance snapped, insulted. “I  _ wish _ he threw me out,” he grumbled into her hair.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Ugh. Alright, remember how I told you two I was going to get Keith to totally fall for me and my irresistible charm?”

“How could we forget?” Hunk said.

“Well it backfired, ‘cause now I kind of…”

“You kind of..?” Pidge echoed.

“So I realised yesterday I was sort of a jerk to him at first—and he was too, for the record, but anyway, ’s not important—so I tried to make up for it a bit last night after we went back to his place, and we talked for a little bit, and…” he trailed off again.

“And?” Pidge prompted again, irritation seeping into her tone.

“Let me explain,” Hunk offered, clearing his throat before going into a singsong, “ _ Keith and La-ance, sitting in a tree _ —”

“Stop it!” Lance retaliated by jabbing his heel into Hunk’s shin, and the latter broke off into a cackle. “It’s not funny; it’s a tragedy!”

“God, Lance,” Pidge groaned, “I gave you  _ one _ instruction—”

“Ah-ah! You told me not to  _ flirt _ with him, you never said anything about crushing on him. This is your fault, if you think about it: you knew he was hot, and that I have a thing for guys who play hard to get. How  _ could _ you, Pidge?”

“Wh—Keith’s not playing hard to get—have you met the guy?!”

“D’you think you’re going to tell him?” Hunk asked.

Lance outright scoffed the suggestion off. “Oh,  _ sure _ : ‘hey I know you’re in the middle of a personal crisis, and after this week we’ll never see each other again, but want to go on a date?’”

“That’s… pretty thoughtful of you, actually,” Pidge replied.

“You sound surprised,” Lance griped. “Look, you guys know me. I don’t do flings, I’m always in it for the long term and just…” he sighed, breath ruffling Pidge’s hair, “that’s not going to happen here. I’m not going to take advantage of Keith’s situation right now just ‘cause I want to bang.”

“So… problem solved then, right?” Pidge asked tentatively, taking clear care to not make the words sound callous.

“No,” Lance disagreed, “not solved, since  _ someone _ decided I’d be the one to sleep over at his place for the next week, and every time I see him my brain turns to mush and my hands get all sweaty.”

“Gross,” she deemed.

“Tell me about it,” he concurred.

“So what, are you going to try and avoid him for the next week?” Hunk asked, sounding dubious. “I don’t think that’ll really work, since you’re supposed to be filming him.”

“Exactly. Also, suspicious much? We just started to get along, now I can’t even be in the same house as him? He’ll know something’s up.”

Pidge snorted. “Ah yes, Keith Kogane: master of reading and interpreting social cues.”

“ _ Anyway _ ,” Lance cut in, “I need you guys running interference on my dumb gay heart; cardio-block me, kids.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Pidge replied, “we were already planning on spending the next few nights at Keith’s, after we hit up the Galra facilities.”

“Pidge doesn’t want her family knowing what we’re doing because it’s  _ illegal _ ,” Hunk lamented.

“Because they’ll try to stop us,” Pidge corrected. “So yes, we will be able to third wheel the two of you.”

Lance gave her a grateful squeeze. “You two are the best.”

Her hands tangled in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer, but her tone failed to relay that same affection. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Now get off me, you woke me up and now I’ve got to pee.”

* * *

The three of them were halfway through lunch by the time a bedheaded Matt stumbled into the kitchen, rolling out his neck and yawning as he walked right over to the fridge.

“Mornin’,” he mumbled into the open fridge, fishing out a jug of orange juice from the fridge before shutting it, going to the pantry to retrieve a glass.

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Pidge corrected, not protesting when he snatched a half of her sandwich off her plate, dropping into the empty chair next to her at the kitchen table.

He nodded to the laptop Lance sat before. “Watcha guys doin’?”

Lance shrugged. “Dumping the camera card; we’ve been here less than three days and I’ve already filled it.” He eyed the progress bar at the centre of the screen, swearing on his life that the thing hadn’t moved a single pixel in the last ten minutes.

“ _ Someone’s _ been taking up a lot of space in Lance’s memory,” Hunk teased.

“Hunk!” Lance exclaimed, aghast.

“And we’re not talking physical,” Pidge continued.

Hunk barked out a laugh. “Oh he  _ wishes  _ it was physical.”

“Wh—I can’t—” Lance sputtered. “Hunk, innuendo is  _ my  _ thing, you can’t just go and use it against me!”

Matt chuckled, eyebrows tilting up in an almost apologetic confusion. “Anyone care to explain all of this to a poor, under-rested grad student?”

Pidge steepled her fingers under her chin, smirking sidelong at her brother. “Lance is smitten with a certain conspiracy theorist.”

Lance glared across the table at her, pouting. “I’m not  _ smitten _ .”

Her gaze slowly travelled over to him, eyebrow lifting as she sized him up. “If I might quote you—”

Lance pointed a stern finger at her. “No, you might not! What I said was off the record and can’t be used as evidence—my sister’s a lawyer so don’t try to pull any of that shit on me!”

Matt snorted, pouring his juice. “And so it is that Keith manages to hook another on his line.”

“Not hooked!” Lance denied.

Hunk scoffed. “So you’re telling me that card  _ isn’t  _ filled with hours of you mooning over Keith and filming his every move?”

“It’s footage! Film footage for the assignment I’m doing because, not sure you remember this, but I’m a film major, Hunk. Of  _ course  _ it’s filled with film on Keith, because he’s my subject.”

Pidge rolled her eyes, pushing to stand. “And the fact that you can sit by yourself and watch hours of close-up, high quality film of a guy you’re hot for is just… a bonus?” She teased, rounding the table to lean over Lance’s shoulder.

He grimaced. “Don’t make me sound creepy. I’m going to be professional about this, I’m not storing it all in the crank tank.”

She pressed a finger to a thumbnail onscreen, turning to raise a defiant eyebrow at him. “Close-ups of his hands?”

He whacked it away. “They’re  _ artistic shots _ , and besides what’s so bad about hands?”

“You have over ten minutes of it.”

“He kept moving!”

Hunk leaned forward on his elbows, resting his chin on a hand. “Can you have a thing for hands? Is that a thing?”

Matt shrugged. “Hands are kind of like feet if you think about it, and lots of people have foot fetishes.”

“Ew,” Pidge gagged, “how much do I have to pay to never hear you say the word ‘fetish’ again?”

Lance ran a hand through his hair. “Why don’t we just drop the topic? I like hands a  _ normal amount _ , let’s just leave it at that.” He turned his glare to the download progress bar, adding a few seconds later: “And feet too, for the record.”

“Oh? And how much would that be?” Pidge baited.

Lance shook his head firmly. “Not answering that  _ obvious  _ trap—ugh, finally!” He exclaimed in elation, the download having finally completed.

Pidge planted a hand on his shoulder, leaning over again to point to another thumbnail on the bottom row. “What’s that?”

He looked at it closer, a frame of he and Keith sitting on the latter’s bed, too small to reveal much of anything else. “Oh, well like I said, we talked last night.”

“And he let you film it?”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Again, do you people just forget the whole reason I’m here?”

She exchanged a meaningful glance with Matt, the latter speaking up as he moved to stand and join them. “About what?”

“Shiro. Guys, seriously, keep up.”

They exchanged another glance in the screen’s reflection, and Lance turned his own gaze on Hunk, silently begging for any insight. All Hunk could offer was an unknowing shrug.

“Actually,” Lance spoke up, “I was wondering if I could interview you too, Matt.” He turned in his chair to properly look at the elder Holt. “There’s some holes in Keith’s story I was hoping you could fill in.”

“Lance—” Pidge started, but Matt halted her with a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s alright, Katie.” He nodded to her, then turned to smile at Lance. “Can I shower first?”

* * *

Ironically, the conversation starting with an inquiry of Matt’s.

“What did you and Keith talk about last night? Like, specifics.”

Lance stared mutely for half a beat, a bit surprised by the unexpected question. He quickly recovered, shifting to turn on the couch a bit more, facing Matt better. “Not a whole lot. He told me Shiro was his hero growing up, and that he was basically…” He furrowed his brow, looking for the right words, “the perfect kid next door, I guess. Top marks, athletic, everyone loved him, all that jazz.”

Matt gave a small, almost bittersweet smile. “That, I can vouch for. There wasn’t a person in town who wasn’t Shiro’s friend when we were growing up.”

“The two of you grew up together?”

Matt shrugged. “He was a few years older than me, but we were family friends, and it’s a small town so… yeah. We got closer when we started working together, that’s for sure.”

Lance hummed thoughtfully. “He also said Shiro supported him through a lot, told me he never gave up on him.”

Matt chuckled, shaking his head. “Keith really gave him a run for his money for a while there, but Shiro’s nothing if not stubborn.”

“Must run in the family.” Matt laughed again, and Lance smiled, waiting patiently for it to subside so he could move into the next question. “So, the reason I wanted to talk to you… I didn’t want to ask Keith about this last night because, well, you know him. It felt a bit too personal, and I didn’t want to pry too far and scare him off.”

Matt nodded. “Ask away.”

Lance exhaled a deep breath, buying himself a bit of extra time to polish off the tact in his phrasing. “We were looking through photos, and I noticed in one of them that Shiro had a prosthetic. I was wondering if there was any sort of story behind that.”

Matt flashed a wry smirk. “You ask the right kinds of questions, Lance. That’s a Galra arm he had.”

Lance’s eyes flew wide in shock. “Galra made prosthetics?”

“They did all kinds of things. The prosthetics were something that was just starting up when I joined their ranks, and the research moved really quickly over a few years, into prototype testing around the time that Shiro lost his arm.”

“And how did he, er, lose it?”

Matt quirked an eyebrow at him, as though he was surprised Lance hadn’t already figured it out. “Galra had prototypes and needed volunteers. No one volunteered, so…” he trailed off, giving Lance an expectant look.

The ball dropped, Lance’s stomach doing much of the same. “You mean they… they  _ took  _ his arm?”

“‘Workplace accident,’ they called it.” He laughed, cold and hollow. “Put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, then said they’d make up for it by covering his medical bills and, surprise surprise, giving him his very own, fresh off the line, Galra prosthetic arm.”

“Why didn’t he sue?”

“NDA,” Matt replied easily. “All the senior researchers had to sign one, top-secret research and all that. Shiro told me and my dad though, and that’s when we decided to leave Galra when we did.”

Lance furrowed his brow. “I don’t blame you, after working for people with that kind of disregard for human lives.”

“Looking back, I’m surprised it took us that long.” He quickly swept his thumb against the inner corners of both eyes, and Lance politely glanced askance, allowing him a moment to recollect himself, his voice edging towards crackling when he spoke next, soft and low. “I wish we could’ve convinced him to do the same. I’m always asking myself ‘what if,’ you know?”

Lance nodded, feeling for the second time in twenty-four hours the distinct urge to pull someone he barely knew into a crushing embrace and promise to fix the unfixable. “Like you said, he was stubborn as can be.”

Matt gave a wobbly smile, turning away and taking a deep breath again to collect himself. Lance figured he’d give the poor guy a break, switching up the topic.

“Does Keith know?”

Matt cleared his throat, voice far steadier than it had been moments prior. “We never told him. But he’s a smart kid, I’m sure he figured it out. It’s probably better that he doesn’t know for sure, if you ask me. Like… maybe he can hold on a little bit to that tiny doubt in his mind, that it could’ve been an accident.”

Lance nodded. “Matt you were there, I have to ask you: do you believe everything he has to say about Galra?”

“Pretty much. I mean, I was just a numbers jockey, so I mostly just saw the surface-level stuff, never caught a glimpse of the shit going on under the table. But even if you didn’t see it, you knew something was going on there.”

“What about with the police, and the surveillance?”

“The sheriff’s definitely in on it, and I wouldn’t put the intimidation tactics past them, though I’ve never seen it myself.”

“And the secret labs?”

“Knew about them. But again, only senior researchers knew where they were.” Lance hummed his assent, and Matt gave him a curious look. “You guys found coordinates, didn’t you?” He asked, almost accused.

Lance shifted, trying to think fast on his feet. Had Pidge not told him? He wasn’t about to be a snitch. “Well, we—Keith found a drive Shiro hid, and it named a few of the labs—”

Matt waved him silent. “And you’re planning on going to them.”

Lance sat back, shaking his head fervently. “Why would—who’s—we don’t even know where they are!”

He scoffed. “You’re a worse liar than Hunk. Look, I’m not going to stop you guys.”

Lance blinked. “You… you’re not?”

“You think I could stop Pidge after she sets her mind to something? It’s…” Matt sighed. “I might not like it, but I understand it. And I think helping you guys gives you the best chance to get out of it in one piece.”

There was a knock on the front door, followed swiftly by the sound of that same door being pushed open. They both turned towards the front foyer, Lance tensing in apprehension as he prayed his voice hadn’t been too loud just then, if it was Pidge’s parents at the door.

“I’m here,” Keith’s voice echoed through the house, and he tensed further. Oh man, this was  _ way worse _ —didn’t Keith finish work in two hours? Why didn’t anyone warn Lance he was coming so soon, give him some time to prepare?! Keith poked his head through from the hallway, eyeing the setup curiously before giving Matt a small wave. “Hey, where’s your sister?”

Matt waved a hand towards the stairs. “In her room, with Hunk.”

“Thanks.” He nodded, walking away. “Hey Lance,” he added cursorily, before disappearing up the stairs.

“‘Sup,” Lance responded to his retreating form, waiting precisely two (now quite rapid) heartbeats before wincing pitifully, burying his face in his hands and groaning. “Oh my god, ‘‘ _ sup _ ?’ What am I, a surfer from an early 2000s Disney Channel original movie?!”

Matt laughed, the couch shifting beneath them both as he stood. “We should probably go join them. Do you need a moment to collect yourself? We can’t have you swooning in his presence, after all.”

“I can see who Pidge inherits her schadenfreude from. And yes, I’ll need a moment.”

* * *

 

After hanging back a few minutes to collect his equipment (and his wits about him,) Lance went upstairs to join the other four in Pidge’s room. Immediately upon stepping through the open doorway, he was greeted with one word.

“Snitch.”

Reflexively, Lance froze under a disappointed glare from Pidge, perched on the foot of her bed. His eyes quickly travelled to Matt, leaned back on his elbows by her side and offering a meek smile.

“Sorry.”

Lance sighed, looking plaintively back to Pidge as he shut her door. “He’s fine with it, what’s the big deal?”

Keith scoffed, arms folded against his chest while he leaned against her desk, while Hunk claimed the desk chair next to him. “What’s the big deal with you blabbing to literally the first other person you saw, you mean?”

Lance rolled his eyes, leaning against the closed door. “Not the first person, I didn’t tell Allura.”

“You  _ would  _ if it got you a date,” he grumbled.

Lance gave a wry smirk. “Think she’d be into it?” He replied reflexively. Keith pinned him with a glare, gripping the edge of her desk.

“Okay, enough,” Pidge declared. “Matt, you said you were going to help us? So what do you have for us?”

He shifted to rest back on his hands. “For starters, how many labs did you find?”

“Four,” Hunk replied.

“Are there more?” Keith asked. Matt hummed noncommittally, and his frown deepened. “ _ Matt _ .”

“As far as you’re concerned, Keith? No.”

“Are they dangerous?” Hunk asked, failing to keep the trepidation from seeping into his tone. “Are there guard dogs? Genetically-modified guard dogs? Genetically-modified guard  _ bears _ ?”

“If I said ‘yes,’ would it be enough to make you guys reconsider?” He was met with a chorus of ‘no’s (and one lonely ‘yes’ from Hunk.) “Worth a shot.”

“They’re won’t be guard dogs,” Keith answered, “that’d be way too suspicious to have in the middle of nowhere, right?” He looked to Matt to confirm.

“Galra doesn’t technically own the land there, ‘cause it’d raise suspicion if they owned just a handful of patches of trees in the middle of nowhere.”

“So technically, it’s not trespassing?” Lance asked pointedly.

“Lance,” Hunk admonished, “‘technically legal’ doesn’t make it right.”

“It wouldn’t make much difference if they had, anyway,” Pidge insisted, “no sane person willingly goes into those woods expecting to make it out alive.”

Hunk blanched. “Oh, great. Good to know that if Galra doesn’t get us then the forest will.”

“The woods are  _ fine _ ,” Keith insisted, “I’ve gone into them plenty of times and I’ve come out none the worse for wear.”

“ _ Well _ ,” Pidge started, Keith sending her a withering look, and she smirked, yielding nonetheless.

“I know the woods,” he assured Hunk. “Follow my lead and you’ll be safe.” Hunk looked less than assuaged, but he set his jaw, nodding. Keith then turned to Matt. “So how do we get in?”

Matt furrowed his brow in earnest, shaking his head. “You don’t. There’s no way you guys break into those labs and make it out alive.”

“What do you mean?” Pidge turned on him. “I thought you said the labs were abandoned.”

“They are, doesn’t mean they’re suddenly a public attraction. Open or closed, Galra doesn’t want anyone knowing what happened in there, and they’ll go to any length to protect that.” Lance shuddered involuntarily, remembering what Matt had revealed to him mere minutes ago about Shiro’s arm—what Keith had all but proved about Shiro’s disappearance.

“I can get past whatever security they throw at me,” Pidge asserted. “Tell me what it is and I can disable it.”

Matt shook his head again. “You need an employee ID with the right credentials to get in, plus manual clearance that goes right through the security office, and every log is recorded. You won’t have the time to halt the system before it triggers the security desk when you get there, and there’s absolutely no wiggle room. The moment you’re caught, you’re dead.”

Hunk held up a timid hand. “Hey, uh, not sure if this is a vote or not, but if it is then put me down as nay for ‘the plan that will definitely get us killed.’”

Keith’s grip tightened, white-knuckling the desk. “Isn’t that why we’re going there, though? Are you saying we go to the trouble of finding the labs then stop before we can get any proof?”

“I’m sure that proving they exist will be enough to warrant an open investigation,” Lance offered.

“And if it’s not?”

Lance sighed. “Then I don’t think going in will make any difference regardless.”

“But it’ll keep you alive,” Matt insisted. “Or at least, it’ll help your chances.”

Pidge pursed her lips, finally nodding. “It’s better than nothing.” She looked to Keith. “It’s better than what we have now.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but ultimately yielded, grip loosening on the desk. “Fine. We’ll start with that plan, see where it takes us.”

“Ooh!” Matt jolted to his feet, adding, “before I forget!” before slipping past Lance and out the door.

They looked to Pidge, but she offered no explanation. “I can’t believe you told first,” she told Lance instead.

“I can’t believe he’s not  _ stopping us _ ,” Hunk lamented.

“And I can’t believe it’s not butter guys, what’s your point?” He heard a stifled snort from Hunk’s side, and they all looked to Keith, a smile vanishing off his face as he schooled it down again, gaze diverted askance. Lance smiled triumphantly. “At least one of you guys has a decent taste in humour.”

Pidge scoffed. “He just hasn’t gotten used to your not-wit yet.”

“Got it!” Matt announced, sidling past Lance to re-enter the room, grinning proudly as he cradled a camera of sorts in his arms. “Figured you guys could use it more than me right now, it’s a night-vision camera.”

Pidge shot to stand, reaching out to beckon it closer. He handed it to her, and she took it eagerly, examining it from every angle. “I totally call dibs on the night vision camera, it’s my brother’s so I get to use it.”

“Alright, it’s yours,” Lance yielded, quirking an eyebrow as she turned it over excitedly in her hands, the three others crowding around her to get a good look. “Jeez Pidge, try not to drool, it’s just a camera.”

“‘ _ Just a camera _ ,’” she mocked.

“Lance,” Hunk spoke up, sidling up to Pidge as they examined it, “I once had to listen to you ramble for two hours non-stop about some new-fangled SLR.”

“Okay, but this is nerd shit, that camera—”

“Nope!” He clapped his hands on his ears. “No more, sorry. Not going through that again.”

“ _ Ooh, look at me _ ,” Pidge continued her crude impression of Lance, “ _ I’m Lance, and I’m too cool to recognise kick-ass advancements in affordable tech because I’m busy making kissy faces at a mirror and striking out with girls _ .”

“I’m not—okay, look, show of hands, who thinks this is cool?” Every hand went up, apart from his own. He folded his arms across his chest. “Alright, your vote can’t count if you don’t have more than five people in your contact list who aren’t related to you.”

Pidge scoffed. “Sorry we aren’t all talking to ‘Becky from History of Film,’ Lance.”

“Hey, that’s your loss,” Lance insisted, “Becky’s a great conversationalist—and good with her mouth in  _ other ways _ , if you know what I mean.” The grimaces he was treated to in response indicated they did, in fact, know what he meant.

“Alright,” Matt broke the moment of awkward silence immediately following, “so here’s how you work this baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro voice: THEY TOOK MY SQUEEZIN ARM
> 
> Also can I just say? After my last longfic I was like ‘o shit u know what I wanna do in my future fics? Write more Shiro. I didn’t get to write him a whole lot.’ Then the next longfic I publish is one where I fecking killed him before the story even started. Sorry bby I’ll keep u alive in the next one I write I promis.
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	7. Seven - Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our intrepid troupe finally embarks on their adventure. Lance and Keith both get their turns to be show-offs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first scene is entirely self-indulgence. That’s my warning for u. Also Keith’s a cutie and does his best to make conversation later on, can we all please appreciate him? I love my autistic son he inherited his poor impulse control from me.

“Let’s go!” Lance called from the driveway, hoisting open the trunk of Colleen Holt’s borrowed minivan and glancing back impatiently to the house. “We’re burning moonlight, guys!”

Pidge stepped out the open front door, bowed under the weight of two hefty equipment bags, sending Lance a dirty glare. “We’d be a lot faster if  _ someone  _ decided to help.”

Lance gasped, offended. “I got the trunk open!”

“My goddamn hero,” Keith sniped from right behind her, eyeing Pidge warily as she navigated down the rickety steps.

“Trust me guys,” Hunk finally joined them, pulling the door shut behind him despite the equipment he also carried, “this is way better than listening to him whine about pulling his weight.”

Lance nodded. “Thank you, Hunk.”

Hunk shot him an unimpressed look, but didn’t bother to pursue whatever retort had clearly come to mind. Ever gracious, Lance helped Pidge unload a shoulder when she arrived, shoving the duffel bag as far in as the trunk would go, then turning back to assist in a similar fashion with all the other bags, until they were set.

Pidge and Keith stepped back from the trunk, and Lance leaned against the tail light as Hunk stepped forward, bending forward once more into the open maw of the trunk. “Alright, one last check: both our camera bags, Matt’s night vision camera, flashlights and batteries, maps, aaaand—” He unloaded the last bag from his shoulder, a pale yellow lunch cooler “—snacks.”

Keith folded his arms, shifting his weight on his feet. “Snacks?”

Lance waved him off. “Don’t question the man.”

“We’re only going to be gone a few hours,” Keith reasoned.

Lance sidestepped as Hunk reached up, shutting the trunk. “Listen, pal: not sure if you noticed, but I’m pretty nervous. When I get nervous, I get snacky, and if I don’t get my snacks when I’m snacky, we have a situation on our hands.”

“It’s true,” Lance supplied. “Science centre field trip, sixth grade. I was there, and you should count your blessings that you weren’t.”

Hunk gestured with both hands to Lance. “Y’see. It’s an insurance investment, really.”

Keith shrugged, the fabric of his windbreaker swishing with the action. “Alright, whatever.”

“So we got everything?” Pidge asked.

“Yep,” Hunk replied, and Lance supplied a nod.

Keith furrowed his brow, looking at their equipment and clearly contemplating something. “Hang on,” he finally said, holding up a finger before spinning on a heel and rushing back to the house. The door rattled in its frame as it slammed behind him, and Lance and Hunk sent twin questioning looks to Pidge, who simply shrugged, her expression equally nonplussed.

It wasn’t long, however, before he emerged once more, turning back on the welcome mat to lock the door, the task of juggling his many keys complicated by the fact that that in his hands he also held… 

“Is that a  _ gun _ ?!” Lance sputtered, his feet moving him on their own accord back towards the porch.

Keith glanced over his shoulder, unfazed, before looking down at the handgun dangling off his ring finger, shrugging, then going back to his work. “Yeah.”

Lance’s voice jumped an octave as he stomped up the rickety steps. “You mean you’ve had a gun in your house this whole time, and you never  _ told me _ ?”

“I’ve never used it,” he insisted.

“Then why  _ have _ it?”

“To keep myself  _ safe _ , why else?” He turned sharply from the door, hands going to his hips.

“Keith,” Pidge joined in, “statistically speaking—”

“I’m not a statistic!” He fired at her. “I know what I’m doing—”

“You said you never used it,” Lance accused.

“Well how hard can it be?”

“Is that thing  _ registered _ ?” Hunk asked.

Keith pulled a face, lifting the gun to his eyes and scanning it for a fast second, like the answer was written on the fucking hilt. “No clue; it’s not mine.”

Lance lifted his hands up to his temples. “Oh my godddd…”

“You don’t know what we’re up against, I do,” Keith accused, gesturing at Lance with the hand still loosely grasping the firearm.

“ _ Ay _ , fucking—” Lance leapt in place, shoulders hitching themselves up to his ears before he reached out for it. “ _ Give me that _ , before you kill somebody!”

Keith tensed, clutching it to his chest, but before he could reply, Hunk spoke up. “Give him the gun, man.” Keith looked warily to Hunk, and he continued. “I know, sounds crazy, but Lance is the only one of us who has experience with them.”

Keith turned back to Lance now, and Lance nodded, beckoning it with his outstretched hands once again. Sighing, Keith reluctantly handed it over, and Lance’s lungs released a heavy breath of relief.

He turned it over in his hands, a pretty little thing despite having clearly been left to collect dust over the years. After ensuring that the hammer wasn’t cocked and the safety was on, he pulled out the magazine and counted the bullets—not a single one missing, Keith obviously true to his word.

“Listen man,” Hunk continued while Lance silently tinkered, “Matt says no Galra personnel are going to be there, and my wishful thinking has me inclined to believe him.”

The grip was familiar, its weight in his hand reminiscent of his abuelo’s old revolver, the one he’d let Lance use when teaching him his old sharpshooting tricks.

“What if he’s wrong,” Keith countered, stepping away and down the steps. “Because if he is, I’d still feel safer than going in without.”

Lance paused his examination momentarily, stuffing a hand in his front pockets in search of…  _ Aha! _ He brandished the quarter he’d fished out in front of his eyes, smirking down at the silver George Washington on its obverse. The poor bastard didn’t know what was coming for him (then again, he was a massive racist, so this was at best just a hint of the karmic retribution he deserved.)

“I had gym class with you, Keith,” Pidge pointed out, “I know  _ for a fact _ you have zero aim. The gun stays.”

Lance adjusted his grip on the gun, clicking off the safety and pulling back the hammer. He hefted the coin up once, twice, then launched it up in the air, pulling up the handgun and squinting an eye behind it, aim wavering as he tried to line up with the moving target.

_ Come on, Lance. One chance to hit this. _

“Basketballs and bullets are two different things, I can—”

_ Bang! _

Lance winced a touch at the feedback, practically right in his ear and drowning out the  _ ping! _ of the quarter getting hit—and Lance  _ knew  _ he hit. His friends, however, weren’t quite so fortunate. Immediately upon hearing the shot, Pidge jumped about three feet in the air. Hunk yelped, almost louder than the gun, hands coming up to shield his head. Keith practically hit the fucking deck, dropping to crouch against his front lawn, hands cupping against his ears.

Lance grinned, flicking back the safety and blowing against the barrel of the gun, stepping down the porch to retrieve his prey. The other three didn’t venture to move, although Keith dropped his hands, one of them clutching to his chest instead.

“What the  _ fuck  _ was that for?!” He demanded, his voice uncharacteristically shrill.

Lance finally spotted the coin, glinting in the porchlight, and he giddily bent down to pick it up. He spun on his heel as he straightened, wordlessly holding it up and out to the other three, beaming with a pride akin to that he felt the first time he’d shown the same to his abuelo.

Dead. Centre.

The three of their jaws slackened, Hunk’s hands dropping to his sides, Keith slowly rising to stand.

Lance turned to Hunk, smile turning smug. “Guess I still got it.”

Pidge and he broke out of their momentary stupor to send him derisive looks. “Don’t be a show-off,” Pidge said. She then looked to Keith, eyes still wide in shock and awe. She stepped up to him, whacking him on the arm to catch his attention. “And Keith? Try not to cream your pants.”

Keith’s jaw dropped as he sputtered indignantly, turning on her. “What’s—I’m  _ not _ —”

“I guess Lance can keep the gun,” Hunk continued for her. “Now let’s go, before it gets too late.” They both stepped away towards the car, leaving Lance and Keith on the front lawn.

Keith’s gaze returned to Lance once more, and Lance’s to Keith. Before it could get awkward, Lance sent him a wink, flipping the coin out towards Keith before turning away to follow Pidge. In his peripheral vision, he saw Keith snatch it out of the air, turning sharply to follow suit on the other side of the car.

* * *

 

“Hey,” Keith broke the silence that had settled between the two of them, crossing their flashlight beams, as though he’d made to tap Lance on the arm but abandoned it halfway through. “Why’s Hunk always carrying your camera?”

Lance blew out a chuckle, taking care not to trip again on an overgrown root as they navigated through the thick brush. “Have you seen his arms? The guy’s got pythons, and me?” He held out an arm to Keith in demonstration, the sleeve of his fraying olive green jacket hanging loosely over his skinny frame. “Garter snakes.” He dropped the hand, chin sticking up as he breezily continued, “besides, if I’m behind the camera, how’s the adoring public going to see my gorgeous face?” He flashed a grin for posterity’s sake.

Keith scoffed, eyes downcast as he scanned the forest floor. “I thought directors were supposed to stay behind the scenes, so you don’t interfere with the story.”

“Okay, might I remind you that if it weren’t for my ‘interfering,’ you’d still be making up rainbow conspiracies in your little notebook. Maybe it’s a little unorthodox, but  _ this  _ director likes to have a hand in every part of his story.”

“You know what that makes you?” He asked, smirking.

“What?”

“A Tommy Wiseau.”

Lance gasped, feigning offence. “Keith, how dare you! If either of us is a Tommy Wiseau, it’s you. I mean, look at your hair!”

“It’s not  _ that  _ long,” Keith denied, laughing.

“Dude, I’m pretty sure you’ve caught enough twigs and leaves in there to make a bird’s nest. When’s the last time you cut it?”

“How’m I supposed to remember? I cut it when it gets too long.”

“What would  _ you _ quantify as long?” Lance reached up his free hand, twirling fingers in strands that hung low behind Keith’s ear. “Because, really, this is too long or short to be anything other than a mullet, the most tragic of all the fad hairstyles.”

Keith didn’t respond to the jab, simply half-turning his head to fix Lance with a curious expression. Lance realised, all too late really, that he was essentially combing his fingers through Keith’s hair (and with an admittedly weak precedent, no less.)

“Checking for fleas?” Pidge called out from behind. Lance snatched his hand back, freezing on his feet and looking guiltily over his shoulder. She paused a moment herself, very obviously sending Lance a pointed look he couldn’t see in the dark, then turned towards her right, spreading out their search area.

Right, the search. He’d been… distracted, to say the least.

Looking back to Keith, he smiled meekly, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to go see if Hunk’s found anything.” Before Keith could reply, he turned away and scurried off in search of Hunk, a handful of yards behind with his flashlight pointed towards him.

He sidled up next to his best friend, leaning close to hiss in his ear. “Hey buddy, what the hell happened to interference? I’m dying out here.”

Hunk shrugged noncommittally, jostling his flashlight beam as it rested duct-taped to the top of the camera he hauled. “You seemed to have it covered.”

“I seemed—since wh—I was petting his hair, Hunk!” He sputtered.

“Shh,” Hunk hushed. “Microphone.”

Lance huffed, obliging. “You want to know something, I bet this is payback for that time you struck out with Mila Osuri in the seventh grade.”

“I didn’t strike out with her,” Hunk countered, “you told me to literally copy what you did to ask Jenny Yi out two days before.”

“Well it worked for me, how was  _ I _ supposed to know it wouldn’t work for you?”

“Because the whole class knew about it, so obviously it lost its novelty. To her I was just the second dude who woke up at ass-o’-clock in the morning to write ‘will you go out with me’ in chalk on the pavement under our classroom window.”

“I thought we settled this years ago—I bought you a milkshake and forfeited my rights to a wingman veto, like, that Saturday. Ancient history! This is the present, and in the present you guys’ve  _ got  _ to start taking this more seriously, or else I’m going to be macking with him by the end of the night.”

“The night?” Hunk challenged with a laugh.

Lance held up a finger. “You know baby moves fast. I’ve got manœuvres for days, Hunkalicious.”

“Y’know, this really should be a lesson in self-control, Lance. God knows you could use some.”

“But I  _ can’t _ ,” he whined, grabbing onto Hunk’s arm with both hands and burying his face into his shoulder. “My game is stronger than me, and he’s  _ so cute _ . This is actually going to kill me. Hasta la Lance.”

Hunk sighed again, but before he could get anything out, Keith’s voice cut through the crisp night air. “Hey, I think I found something!”

Hunk paused, looking up, and Lance lifted his head too, the two of them exchanging a questioning glance before Keith called out again, twice as loud and voice brimming with elation.

“Holy shit—guys, I found it!”

“Where?” Pidge called back, picking her pace up as she waded through the tall grass to catch up to his voice. With an insistent tug, Lance pulled Hunk to follow her, ultimately dropping his arm a few paces in so as to make use of his own light in the pursuit.

“Over  _ here _ ,” Keith insisted, clearly oblivious to the fact that they had no idea where ‘here’ was. 

Pidge, miraculously, seemed to understand the directive, pushing through the shadows with more purpose. Lance, miraculously, managed to only trip once in the process, stumbling out to right himself. Once recovered, he ultimately found Keith in the collective lighting of their flashlights, facing them with his hands on his hips and a triumphant grin pinned to his face.

(And Lance’s heart definitely did  _ not _ flutter, thank you very much, at the sight.)

“You crazy bastard,” Pidge breathed a chuckle, stepping up to meet him, “you were right, weren’t you?”

He jerked his head toward what lay behind him, turning on his heel then sinking to a squat, a hand resting in the dirt to clearly indicate something. Lance came up and knelt beside him, getting a closer look at what lay beneath the foliage Keith brushed away.

It was a scanning pad, hidden beneath the tall grass, with a sensor on the face that was the perfect size for an identification card.

“This has to be it,” Keith breathed, and once satisfied that everyone’d gotten an eyeful he shuffled over to pull away at long grassblades that tangled against a much larger metal panel. He’d clearly already begun tearing away before they’d caught up, a corner peeking out from the greenery, and Lance’s hands immediately joined in to facilitate the work.

They wordlessly pulled away the tangled undergrowth, unveiling what seemed to be a heavily armoured entryway to some sort of bunker. Lance sat back on his heels, while Keith reverently brushed away excess dirt from the polished metal panel.

His hand stilled, and he turned to Lance, his smirk somehow boyish and haughty at once. “How’s  _ this _ for a nutty conspiracy, Lance?” He challenged, voice still breathy from exertion. And damn, if Lance thought proud looked good on Keith, then cocky looked downright  _ sinful _ .

Lance blushed, thankful in the moment for the lowlight, and attempted a few gestures with his hands, unable to convey any particular thing, while he tried to relearn how to talk. “It’s… I guess I was the nut, after all.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘nut,’” Pidge corrected, standing over the two of them to get a good shot with her brother’s camera, “maybe ‘ding-dong.’ Do you think that’s fair, Lance?”

Keith laughed, high and giddy, while Lance’s face dropped into a scowl, and he flipped off her camera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me @ Dreamworks: LET! KEITH! BE! HAPPY! YOU! FUCKS!  
> Me looking @ the backstory of this fic: …….. o  
> Me looking @ the future chaps for this fic: …………………. o………... 
> 
> *Hunk voice* If I say “we’re gonna be okay” enough times maybe then I’ll believe it someday  
> I remember in first year of uni one of my classmates was stressing out over an assignment--she literally recreated a Picasso (iirc) for a /participation mark/--and I was like ‘oops yeah when’s that due I should get on that’ and she asked me how I can be so chill with my marks and I told her it’s bc my anxiety’s so bad that if I let myself care even just a little bit it’d render me nonfunctional so… anyway point I was trying to make is I’m projecting my anxiety coping onto Hunk because his anxiety presentation in canon is Such A Mood for me.
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	8. Eight - Wednesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance discovers that perhaps the only thing worse than he and Keith being constantly at odds is the two of them actually getting along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flustered Lance? Always primo. Enjoy some actual levity in this fic’s backstory, based /very/ loosely off my own sibling interactions.

“Hey,” Keith greeted as he came through the door. Lance alone lounged in the living room, leaning back on the re-folded and de-sheeted couch, and he looked up from his phone to nod, eyes travelling back to his Twitter feed after a brief moment.

His focus was permanently ruptured, however, when Keith dropped into the seat next to him. Immediately forgotten, his phone dropped to his lap, and he gaped at Keith, currently bent over to fish his laptop out from his messenger bag.

“Uh…” Lance started, mainly to give his gaping mouth a task while he tried to figure out what he was trying to say. “Watcha doing?”

“Hm?” Keith righted himself, looking to Lance curiously. “Oh, well…” He looked down at his computer, now resting in his lap, and cracked it open. “Since we didn’t get a chance to yesterday, I thought we could keep going through the photos.” He quickly typed out his password, turning back to fix Lance with a scrutinising squint. “Unless you don’t want to?”

“No!” Lance corrected immediately, and Keith winced a touch, leaning back. Lance mentally cursed his lack of volume control, trying to rein it in as best he could when he spoke next. “I mean, yeah of course I want to—I’m just surprised that  _ you _ want to.”

Keith shrugged, gaze falling back to his screen as he navigated towards the pictures once more. “Are you going to get your camera?”

Lance blinked, silent for a beat. “My—oh.” He shot up to stand, movements too tense and skittish for him to be proud. “Duh, of course, my camera.” He stepped over to the bag resting by the far side of the coffee table, wrestling with the straps and fumbling to free the contents, “how else am I going to record this? ‘Cause that’s why I’m here,” he rambled, trying to cover his shame with a laugh as he hastily set up the shot. “It’s what I do. Um… recording… stuff.” 

“Film,” Keith supplied easily.

Lance snapped his fingers, faking a ‘eureka.’ “ _ There _ you go, that’s what they call it in the biz…ness,” he finished lamely, clambering back to reclaim his spot on the couch.

If there was any justice in the world, it was that Keith didn’t seem off-put by Lance making an ass of himself, nor did he seem to pull away when Lance settled a bit closer to his side (only to see the screen better, of course.)

“What’re you two doing?” Pidge’s voice materialised from nowhere, and  _ damn _ , Lance had forgotten she and Hunk had been in the kitchen.

_ Wait no, _ Lance’s logic scolded,  _ this is a good thing _ — _ she’s doing exactly what you asked her to do. _ Lance himself whined, but only internally, knowing it—and she—was right.

Lance pulled back a bit as he looked up to her, suddenly self-conscious about how he’d practically pasted himself to Keith’s side, while Keith replied. “We’re going through old photos and talking about Shiro,” he answered innocently—yeah no shit, because for Keith it  _ was _ innocent—looking up to her.

She hummed thoughtfully, sauntering towards them. “Did you tell him about ‘fuck me harder, daddy’?”

Keith’s eyes lit up, a hand coming up to cover his mouth as he snorted. “No, why the hell would I tell him about  _ that _ ?”

“It’s  _ iconic _ ,” she laughed, stepping over the coffee table in two strides, then pivoting on her heel. 

Keith barely had the time to move his computer before she landed ass-first on their laps, wedging herself into the minute space between them to stake her claim. Lance did his best to conceal his pout, regretting his choice to be  _ responsible _ for once instead of giving into hubris as per usual.

“‘Fuck me harder daddy’ remains the highlight of my short life.” She took his laptop away, and he offered zero resistance.

“Okay, the seed’s been planted,” Lance contributed, “now you have to tell me.”

Keith rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “It was this stupid game Pidge and me used to play.”

“ _ Keith _ ,” Pidge interrupted, eyes glued to the screen as she scrolled rapidly through his file folders, “it’s our history, and if you’re not going to respect it then I’m not going to let you tell the story.”

“Alright,” he chuckled, turning to look at Lance over her bowed head. “Basically it was a contest to see who could get a better rise out of their brother. We’d each take turns snapchatting each other their reaction to us saying—”

“Found one!” She cheered, slapping Keith on the arm to catch his attention before she double-clicked on a video file, opening it up.

A shaky camera focused in portrait on Keith’s front door, promptly opening up to reveal a clearly exhausted Shiro. 

From behind the camera, Keith’s voice came out as a needy growl, syllables stretched through salacious gasps he was clearly fabricating. “ _ Fuck me harder, daddy. _ ”

The camera zoomed into the pixels of Shiro’s face as he froze in the doorway, his tired glare clear despite the quality revealing little of his expression before both hands came up to cover his face. His reply was hardly audible—particularly under Keith’s failed muffling of his giggles—but thankfully there was a caption beneath him that matched its meter: “ _ I can’t do this anymore. _ ”

And the video cut off, leaving Keith and Pidge to fend off a wave of laughter.

“That’s not even the best one,” Keith insisted, “one time I did it when he was driving, and he got so mad he threw my chicken strips out the window.”

Pidge cackled. “It wasn’t fair, Shiro got  _ way _ more riled up than Matt ever did, but I did get Matt a lot more times than Keith got Shiro.”

Lance chuckled. “So who won in the end?”

“It’s—” Pidge started, immediately cut off by Keith.

“Me,” he declared.

She sent him a glare. “No, neither of us won.”

Keith rolled his eyes, looking to Lance. “We had to stop after Pidge mistook her dad for Matt.” He failed to hold back the smile the memory prompted.

Lance gasped, prodding Pidge to draw her attention. “No way, you said ‘fuck me daddy’ to your  _ actual _ dad?”

“Fuck me  _ harder _ , daddy,” Keith corrected, earning an elbow in the side from Pidge.

“Needless to say, we stopped doing it after that incident, and I forever have to live with the shame of that day.” She passed the computer back to Keith, then pushed up to her feet, stepping over Lance’s legs to round back to the kitchen. “Alright, well my work here is done. Later kids.”

Lance blinked. “Wait, what? Where are you going?”

“Hunk and I have to study.”

“It’s the break!” Lance protested.

“We’re STEM majors,” she offered in lieu of an explanation, “we study ‘til we die.” And with that, she disappeared beyond the kitchen doorway.

Lance looked to Keith, shrugging for the latter’s benefit. He tried not to glance at the newfound crater between the two of them.  _ Should I close that up again? Would it be weird? _

“Allura asked where you’ve been,” Keith broached casually, softly shutting his laptop and transferring it to the table top.

Lance’s eyebrows shot up. “She did?” Remembering himself a bit, he schooled the surprise from his expression, chuckling haughtily. “Guess my charm’s finally starting to work its magic.”

Keith scoffed, bringing his knee up on the couch to face Lance head-on, an elbow resting on the back cushion to prop his head up. “I think she means more along the lines of you being my self-proclaimed documentarian, and being nowhere in sight for most of my waking day.”

“Does she know what we’re doing at night? I mean—”  _ Poor choice of words, shitshitshit _ . “L-like the searching thing—the secret labs, does she know about that?”

He pouted. “I didn’t tell her. Why would I? She doesn’t believe me.”

Lance sighed. “I don’t think it’s that she doesn’t believe you, it’s more…” he gestured vaguely, as if grasping for the words to say. “She wants to see you move on, to get closure.”

He sighed, eyes falling. “Yeah, I get it,” he muttered, a twinge of irritation to the words.

Lance pursed his lips, eager to unsour Keith’s mood. “So… does this mean I can come back?”

Keith shrugged, his posture easing. “If you want.”

Lance grinned. “ _ Hell _ yes, who wouldn’t want to?” He clutched a hand to his chest, looking out wistfully at nothing in particular. “To see all those little furry faces light up at the sight of me again! You just know they all missed me too. Mimi especially—she and me have a special bond, I can tell.”

“Dude, oh my god.” Keith shook his head, laughing. “Allura let you back for all of five minutes, you can’t be serious right now.”

Lance scoffed, waving the assertion off flippantly. “I have a way with cats, Keith. My natural charm doesn’t limit itself to humans, you know.”

“I don’t think it even  _ starts _ at humans.”

“You wound me, Keith,” Lance protested. “What did I ever do to deserve this injustice?”

“How much time do you have?”

* * *

 

“Is it Queen?”

Keith shrugged.

“You look like you listen to punk rock; Green Day?”

“You know I’m not going to tell you.” Keith didn’t even have the decency to pretend he was paying attention to Lance, scanning the forest clearing with his flashlight instead.

Lance adjusted beneath the camera on his shoulder, refusing to acknowledge Keith’s assertion. “No, no, it  _ can’t  _ be that obvious; you wouldn’t hide it if it were that easy to guess.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully, tailing Keith with zero obvious intention to pitch in on the search. “It’s got to be something unexpected.”

“You won’t guess it in a million years,” he scoffed, arrogant as ever.

“Katy Perry.”

Keith froze, turning to treat Lance with a disgusted look through the eyepiece.

Lance held his free hand up. “Fair enough. But I’ll guess it, I guarantee you that.”

“Found it!” Hunk called from ahead, and the two of them hit pause on the conversation as they rushed to catch up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> K if y’all have read my hs klance AU Throwback Playlist u might remember me writing something along the lines of “you mention the daddy kink so much I have to assume at this point you have one.” And look like I’m ace as fuck but now I’m wondering if I pre-emptively called myself out. I need to do some introspection on why I always joke about it.  
> See here’s the great thing about fanfic, you can find full on novels for free online while also being able to read about the author having an existential crisis on kinks in the notes. Where the FUCK else are you gonna get that experience? The library? Not a chance (and thank goodness for that could u imagine??? The only place y’all have to suffer is here. Sorry babes.)
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	9. Nine - Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance continues his noble crusade to uncover Keith’s favourite musician. Meanwhile, their search for evidence continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me @ me: u know this isn’t an essay you don;t have to italicise the names of published works  
> Me also @ me: Hrggh..,, crtl………… + i,,,,,,, I need 2,,,......,,
> 
> Cherish the fluff guys… the plot’s comin for u.

“Madonna.”

“Seriously?  _ Again _ ?” Keith leaned against the doorframe, wrestling with the sticky lock before ultimately managing to yank the vet clinic’s front door open, setting the chime off over his head. “Is it too late to take you home?”

“At least buy me a drink first,” slipped out of Lance’s mouth before he could help it. 

Keith scoffed, tossing his keys at Lance in retaliation (which really wouldn’t have meant a whole lot, if his keyring didn’t weigh about fifteen pounds and hurt like a bitch when it hit you in the gut) before retreating behind the counter to flick on the lights.

“Hurtful. Maybe you’re just a nasty boy after all; you don’t deserve Madonna.” Lance gasped in revelation. “Janet Jackson!”

“No!” Keith fired back immediately, far too confident to have been caught by Lance’s excellent deductive skills.

He sighed, dragging a waiting room chair along as he rounded the front counter, depositing it next to Keith’s desk chair. “Can’t you at least give me a hint?” He slouched off his camera bag, setting it down next to his seat.

Keith returned from the back room, an eyebrow raised in question. “And why would I want to do that?” He spun the chair with one hand, dropping to sit and pulling himself behind the computer, firing it up.

“It’s not a game if you don’t play along,” Lance insisted, rubbing the sleep away from his tired eyes as he prayed his medication would kick in and help him wake up the rest of the way.

Keith took a long drink from his travel mug, waiting for the login screen. “Tragic.”

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. You know what that’s from, Keith?”

Keith furrowed his brow. “ _ The Simpsons _ ?”

“The—what? No,  _ The Shining _ ,” Lance huffed, leaning a hip against the desk. “You need to get cultured.”

“Did it occur to you that  _ maybe  _ you’re just a film snob?”

“I’m not a snob, I just appreciate the finer things in life! Of course  _ you  _ wouldn’t know anything about that, your favourite movie is probably a thirty-minute YouTube video on how Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by a look-alike— _ wait _ , is it Avril Lavigne?”

Keith slapped a hand to his forehead, pushing his bangs back. “It’s going to be a long day,” he muttered.

The front door chimed, both of them looking up to catch Allura entering.

“Mornin’,” Keith greeted, sparing her a cursory glance before turning back to the computer.

“Good morning.” She nodded to him, before turning to Lance with a polite smile. “And Lance, I see you’re… back.”

Lance waggled his eyebrows, leaning an elbow casually on the back of Keith’s chair. “For your viewing pleasure.”

The smile fell, and she quirked an eyebrow, eyes sliding towards Keith.

“I told him you were wondering where he was,” Keith explained, cautiously looking back to her. “Yesterday, remember?”

She scrutinised him another second, then something clicked, and her eyes widened. “Ah, yes. Yesterday, how could I forget?” She looked back to Lance, her smile a bit tight. “I thought it curious that you two weren’t spending the daytime together, only…  _ evenings _ .” She looked back to Keith slyly.

“Well I’m here now, doll,” Lance replied smoothly, “so you can rest easy.”

She completely dropped the friendly pretense, hands coming up to her long locks yet again as she marched towards the back. “Excellent,” she deadpanned.

“What was that about charm?” Keith asked, pursing his lips at the monitor as he typed up an email reply.

Lance rolled his eyes, dropping into his chair. “She’s still coming around, but mark my words, the magic’s working already.” Keith snorted. Lance leaned his elbows onto the desk, edging into Keith’s peripheral vision. “Is it rap? Eminem? Drake?”

“Stop,” Keith groaned, “you’re just embarrassing yourself now.”

Lance pouted. “Is it something crazy obscure, like dubstep Gregorian chants?”

Keith furrowed his brow, glancing at Lance. “Like  _ what  _ now?”

Lance rolled his eyes. “It can’t be something stupidly underground, that’s cheating!”

“Wh—how’s it  _ cheating _ ?” Keith barked out a laugh. “You’re the one who decided you were going to be able to guess it. Besides, it’s not.”

“You mean I’d recognise it?” Keith shrugged, looking back to his screen. Lance smirked, smug. “You just gave me a hint.”

Keith’s fingers stilled momentarily, then he sighed, continuing his typing. “You’re still never going to guess it.”

Lance hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe I don’t have to; does Allura know?”

“She’d never tell you.”

“We’ll see.” He turned to shout over his shoulder. “Hey, Allura!”

Keith tensed, chair spinning as he turned to Lance. “Lance,  _ don’t _ —”

Allura peeked her head through the doorway. “Yes?”

Lance grinned cruelly, affecting innocent curiosity in his tone. “I was wondering if you knew who Keith’s favourite musical artist is.”

“Allura,” Keith cautioned, holding a hand out to her, “do  _ not  _ tell him.”

She grinned, arms folding over her chest as she leaned against the doorway. “I don’t know, Keith, you’ve been asking me to keep an awful lot of your secrets, I’m not sure how much longer I can go before one of them just… slips out.”

Lance started bouncing giddily in his chair, so close to the truth he could practically taste it. 

Keith blanched, jaw tightening. “If you tell him, then I’m telling your uncle what happened to his riding mower on the Fourth of July, twenty-sixteen.”

Her smug expression faded, turning as cold as his. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

A momentary standoff ensued, which Keith ultimately won when Allura tore her gaze away to pout at Lance. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what you’re asking me,” she grit out, turning away to the back rooms once more.

Keith smirked, triumphant. Lance slouched in his chair, looking to Keith again. “So what happened to her uncle’s riding mower on the 4th of July, 2016?”

Keith laughed, spinning back to the computer. “Nothing anyone can prove was our fault. But since then, her uncle’s house parties have been a lot more stingy on the alcohol.”

Lance chuckled, humour buoyed despite his defeat. “Who is this girls gone wild, party animal Keith, and when did he get consumed by mopey, emo kid Keith?”

“Not all of us can keep up our frat boy personas 24/7, Lance,” he replied pointedly, lifting his head when the front door chimed to smile politely at whoever had just walked in, signalling the end of the discussion.

* * *

 

Lance simply stumbled upon the discovery that night. Quite literally: he’d caught his foot on something solid and unseen while he’d been zoning out, barely having the time to throw his hands out to catch his fall before he ate shit.

“You okay?” Pidge called out from a dozen yards away, thundering steps indicating that she was heading over.

“ _ Fine _ ,” Lance groaned, rolling over to his back and pausing to still his racing heart—it’s one hell of a way to come back to reality.

His legs draped over whatever had just tripped him, bending his knees nearly at a ninety-degree angle.  _ Damn _ , he thought,  _ definitely not just a tree root this time _ . He pushed up onto his elbows, hand fumbling against the ground to retrieve his flashlight, flicking it on to examine what he’d tripped on.

It was a tarp. Well, no—okay it was something  _ wrapped  _ in a tarp. Something that had to be pretty fucking big, he discerned with a cursory scan. Ever helpful, his highly-associative mind supplied the words from a little ditty to go along with the realisation:

‘ _ Ain’t it dark wrapped up in that tarp, Earl? _ ’

Lance yelped, scrambling backwards on his hands and feet. “What is that?! Wait,  _ Keith _ !” He looked out, catching his silhouette along with two others rushing over to him. “Keith, is it The Dixie Chicks?”

Keith stilled, hands dropping to his sides as his fists clearly clenched. “Not the  _ time _ , Lance. Did you find something?”

“Well—” He motioned with his flashlight to the tarp, the light bouncing off faded blue hidden beneath dirt, plants, and twigs. “See for yourself.”

Pidge immediately crouched down beside it, hand reaching out but stilling a couple inches above it. “Hey Keith, there’s not been any murders while I’ve been gone, right?”

Keith shrugged. “Not that I remember.” She held out the night vision camera for him to take, which he readily accepted.

“Hang on,” Hunk begged, “I’m not—this isn’t—”

“I’m just making sure,” Pidge reasoned, hooking onto a corner of the tarp and ripping it off without further pretense.

Hunk immediately flinched, turning away from the sight and shutting his eyes in fear. Lance couldn’t blame him, as he’d also turned away in fear of what he might see.

“Woah,” Pidge breathed, pulling the rest of the tarp off and rummaging through the contents. 

_ Okay, it can’t be a dead body if she’s doing that _ , he reasoned, allowing himself to sneak a peek. “What is it?” He asked, shifting to crawl over to the others.

“It’s…” she started, trailing off before she got to the answer. Instead, she held something up in her hand, shining her light against a plastic card on the end of a lanyard.

“I.D. cards,” Keith finished for her, dropping to his knees to join her rummaging with his free hand. She discreetly plucked the camera out of his hand, passing it over to Lance so she could keep going as well.

He held the shot, scanning the contents for himself. Among the many plastic cards identical to the one Pidge had held up, there were bundles of white cloth, stained brown from dirt, and a more rusty shade, Lance could only speculate, from blood. His own ran cold in his veins at the thought.

Keith was a machine, picking card-by-card, examining both sides, then tossing it off to the side as he moved to the next. Lance’s stomach gave a sickening lurch as he realised what—or rather, who—Keith was looking for. 

Guilt settled in that same place when, at the end of a half an hour, the search had come up fruitless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rubs my evil little fly hands 2gether* we’re rampin up 2 the angst ppl and idk about u guys but I’m grabbin my skateboard and gettin ready 2 do SOME SIQQ KICKFLIPS ON THAT MOFO
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	10. Ten - Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith opens up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always have to have one of these chapters. I’ve decided to call them Bonding Moment Chapters. Caution for ‘this story’s got a moral guys,’ coupled with a side of ‘seemingly unrequited pining.’ Mm what a delectable dish. Shlerp slorp.

Lance was woken up by a resounding clang a room over, followed by a muffled “Fuck!”

He blinked away his dream, opening his eyes against the darkened silhouette of Hunk’s back, the steady rise-and-fall of his ribcage indicating that his best friend clearly hadn’t woken up when he had. He pushed up to his elbows, turning to look at the kitchen, a dim light bouncing off the far wall and confirming that the noise hadn’t come from his dream.

Gently, he pulled away the covers and stood from the bed, double-checking over his shoulder that he’d not woken Hunk up, then tiptoed towards the light, ears catching disgruntled mutters as he grew closer.

Keith knelt on the floor, his electric kettle stood upright and forgotten beside him as he dabbed a dishtowel against a puddle of water that trickled outwards, starting to soak the knees of his pyjamas. His phone sat face-up on the counter, its cold light bouncing off the ceiling to grant its dim light to the scene.

He looked up to Lance, shoulders sagging. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Lance shook his head, matching Keith’s whisper. “Don’t worry about it. Here, let me help.” He scanned the counters for another towel, and failing that, pulled the paper towel roll off its stand and sunk to his knees, twirling about a dozen sheets around his fist before tearing off, folding them up, and starting to mop up the water.

“Thanks,” Keith muttered, shifting aside to grant Lance some more space.

Silence reigned for ten seconds before Lance broke it. “I had no clue you started work so early on Fridays. I’m glad I didn’t volunteer to come.”

Keith chuckled, leaning away to rein in a few runaway rivulets. “I’m not, I’m just… having trouble sleeping.”

“Yeah?”

“It happens,” he replied simply.

Lance glanced over to the electric kettle, its cord now soaking and definitely no longer safe to use. “So what were you making: coffee or tea?”

Keith paused his work, sitting back on his heels to swipe the back of his hand against his forehead. “Not sure. I was going to figure it out when I got there, but now…” he trailed off, eyeing the kettle disappointedly.

Lance liberated a handful more of paper towel, leaning over to start on Keith’s side. “Let’s not tempt fate; Thomas Edison’s ghost is a vengeful bitch, Keith.”

Keith laughed again, the brilliant sound echoing through the silent house and reverberating through Lance’s chest, pulling at the edges of his smile and threatening to stretch it further.

“Hey, you know what?” Lance looked up to Keith. “Get your coat.”

Keith’s smile faded a tad. “Why?”

Lance pushed to stand, stretching through a hushed yawn. “I’ve got a trick for when I can’t sleep, it works every time.”

* * *

 

“Right here.” Keith pointed to a spot on the forest floor, virtually indiscernible from the acres of ground they’d already passed apart from the fact that it was set in front of a smooth, leaning boulder rising out of the ground. Keith stepped towards it readily, resting a hand against the rock for support as he sunk to the ground, turning to recline against it. “Well? There’s enough room for two.” He pat the dirt next to him, then pulled at the lapels of his windbreaker, wrapping them around himself before folding his arms across his chest.

Lance nodded, following suit. “Don’t get me wrong, but why here? The rock’s nice, but it’s no Lay-Z-Boy.”

Once Lance was seated, Keith unfurled a hand, pointing up to the sky. “Look.” Lance lifted his eyes, his breath catching at the sight. 

Growing up in the suburbs, he’d gotten accustomed to a bare few, easily discernible constellations. But here, through a gap in the canopy the rock sat them perfectly beneath, the night sky  _ shimmered _ , stars unashamed to glow to their full potential, uninhibited by light pollution and framed delicately through the branches up above.

“Wow,” Lance breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah.” He looked back to Keith, and Keith looked away from him, out to scan through the trunks, arms tightening around himself once more as a breeze whistled through them. “It’s quiet, too. Makes you feel… like nothing’s real. It’s like a little break from existence.” He looked up to the heavens once more, the stars shimmering in his eyes, and Lance’s mind was at a loss for any further descriptors.

_ Beautiful _ , it reiterated.

“So…” Lance licked his lips, his mouth suddenly going dry. “Why can’t you sleep?”

His brow furrowed, eyes dropping to his lap. “I don’t know. Like I told you, it happens.”

He nodded. “I know it happens, but it doesn’t  _ just  _ happen. There’s always a reason behind it—often it’s many—and from what I’ve heard of your past, it looks like you can take your pick.”

“It’s not—” He cut himself off, drawing his knees in. “It’s stupid.”

“The more you ignore it, the worse it’s going to get, trust me on that. You’ve got to get it out in the open, so c’mon, let’s talk.”

Keith sighed, resolve bowing a touch. “Where do I even start?”

“Start with whatever’s on your mind. We can fill in and build off from there.”

He contemplated silently a moment, before speaking up softly. “Did you always imagine ending up where you are, Lance?”

Lance hummed, looking back to the stars as he considered the question. “You mean, like, where I am right now? I guess… for the most part. Planning to graduate out of my bachelor’s, living with my two best friends, all that stuff. I mean, it’s not  _ exactly  _ what I was expecting going in.”

“How do you mean?”

Lance shrugged. “I was originally in astrophysics, the goal was to be an astronaut.”

Keith looked to him. Lance kept his eyes up. “What changed?”

Lance smiled wryly, rubbing the back of his neck. “My life  _ kind of _ went to shit. I’d barely scraped in with my marks out of high school, then there was the added stress of finding the money to afford college—youngest of seven right here—’cause I had, like, no scholarships lined up. On top of that they tried taking me off my medication the summer before freshman year, because apparently I was supposed to outgrow my disability—no one brought my brain up to speed on that, F.Y.I.”

“Right before college?” Lance nodded. “Why?”

“Turned eighteen, and right about then’s when they pressure you to quit, ‘s what happens with lots of kids with ADD. Anyway right about then’s also when I came out to my family, which was a shitshow on a shitshow.”

“Came out?” Lance turned to catch the confusion on Keith’s face.

Lance laughed. “Yeah, I’m bi, what did you think?”

Keith shrugged, gaze faltering. “I don’t know, I just assumed that… you sort of act like a straight guy.”

Lance threw a hand to his chest, mocking insult. “Keith, that’s the single rudest thing anyone has ever said to me!” Keith snorted. “Also, did you  _ seriously  _ think Pidge would ever be friends with a straight person?”

“Fair enough. So, Hunk?”

“Demi—not into dudes, tragically,” Lance sighed, forlorn.

Keith nodded, shifting closer. “Good to know.”

Lance yawned, picking back up. “So with all of that going on, I flunked my first semester science courses, and it was clear that nothing I could do was going to salvage that. Plus, the stress of STEM was too much for me. I just…” he paused, eyes falling to his lap. “I wasn’t built for it. Lucky for me, I had an in with the head of the film department, and when he heard I was planning to drop out he convinced me to put in an application to a film major, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.”

Keith was silent a few heartbeats, then murmured, “I’m sorry.”

Lance picked up his eyes, giving him an apologetic smile. “Don’t be, it’s good. I love what I do now, and I’m good at it—I’ve always been a better communicator, anyhow. Maybe I won’t go to the stars, but I hope one day I can bring the stars down for people, y’know?”

Keith nodded, eyes falling again. He unfolded his arms, resting his elbows on his knees and kneading his outstretched hands together. He seemed to be struggling with his own words, wanting to share but not sure how to go about it. Lance decided to help him out a bit.

“Are you scared of what’ll happen if we don’t find what we need?”

Keith’s brow furrowed. “I’m scared of what’ll happen if we do.”

Lance’s eyebrows shot up, and he shifted closer. “Why?”

Keith stretched his legs out, hands falling to rest in his lap, fingers pulling up on the cuffs of his windbreaker. “It’s… different. If we don’t find enough proof, I keep searching. I always will. But we’ve never been this close before, never… I’ve never had to consider what life would be like after this.”

“ _ Keith _ ,” Lance breathed, halfway between a reprimand and a comfort. Tentatively, he reached an arm over Keith’s shoulder, resting it against his back and rubbing gentle circles there.

“It’s selfish,” he decided, voice hardened.

Lance shook his head. “No it’s not. It’s how you feel, how you learned to cope with what you were going through. You dedicated your entire life to making sure your brother gets justice, that’s got to be the most selfless thing I’ve ever seen anyone do—hell, I think the first thing  _ my  _ brothers’d do if I went missing is steal my 3DS for good.” Keith yielded a gentle smile, and it bolstered Lance’s confidence. “You shouldn’t feel guilty for being scared of change, but if you’re so scared of the change, then you have to start reaching out.”

Keith sighed. “I can handle it myself.”

Lance slid his hand further, resting it across his shoulders now. “You don’t have to, though. Just because you  _ can  _ do it by yourself doesn’t mean you should. Wouldn’t that have been what Shiro wanted for you?”

He was silent for a moment, then a gentle smile broke through on his face. He laughed, shaking his head. “You remind me of him a bit sometimes.”

_ That  _ was a surprise to hear. “Really?”

“Yeah. He’d give me pep talks like this all the time.” He looked up to Lance just then, a boyish smirk playing over his features. “And he was also terrible at flirting with girls.”

Lance shoved him playfully with his free hand, the other still wrapped across his shoulder and preventing him from going too far. “I’m nice to you, and  _ this  _ is how you repay me? With lies and slander?”

Keith laughed, shifting closer still, knees turning in against Lance as he rested on his hip. “No lies, just facts.”

“You’ve seen me in action once, my game is usually a lot more smooth, trust.”

“I can only hope.”

Lance smiled, squeezing his arm around Keith. “You’re going to be okay. You’ve got a lot of people pulling for you, and we’re all here for when you need us.”

Keith leaned his head back, resting his temple against the cool stone and shutting his eyes. “Thanks,” he breathed.

Peaceable silence stretched across the forest, and in the air between them. Keith’s breathing slowed, tension ebbing from his body with every exhale. Lance sat still next to him, content to watch the harsh lines in his face smooth over, privy to the display by the moonlight and their proximity.

In an instant, Lance became keenly aware of how Keith had relaxed into him, how Keith  _ leaned  _ into him. His knees resting against Lance’s thigh, body pressed from hip-to-shoulder into his side, head angled back and trapping Lance’s arm between his warmth and the cool stone. Lance gave a tiny gasp as the realisation crashed into him, his grip automatically tightening around Keith. Unexpectedly, Keith didn’t react to it, not resisting, but not falling into Lance, so clearly he was still awake, or at least mostly so.

And God, did Lance want to kiss him. It felt right to kiss him, here, in Lance’s arms, eyes shut and so close, alone, just the two of them, emotions raw and unhidden beneath the stars, their soft light caressing his cheek. Lance lifted his hand to do the same, fingers tentatively reaching out to—

“We should probably go back,” Keith sighed.

Lance stilled, his hand hovering a mere few inches from Keith’s face. He quickly snatched it back as Keith’s eyes drifted open. He nodded mutely, not trusting his voice to come out as anything but a squeak, retracting his arm as Keith pulled away, yawning as he stood.

He tried to ignore how much colder the night air had gotten in the moments following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Callout for me queerbaiting you. Also my tiny callout for the shite treatment ADHDers get for needing medication into adulthood. But mostly the first one.
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	11. Eleven - Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday mornings are for dance parties. Evenings, for mistakes. Nights, for answers.
> 
> Lance gives in. Keith gives up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s kind of thematically influenced by Florence and the Machine’s “Never Let Me Go” (u can see the lyrical reference in the summary lmao. Obviously it’s taken out of context but I’d make the argument that lyrical significance is at once created by the author and the reader. It’s analogous to the linguistic concept that the locutor and the receiver both play a part in the semantics of an utterance. U guys would never guess it but I’m actually a filthy intellectuale, I just talk dumb because I’m gay)
> 
> Grab ur security blankets m8s, it’s angst time. Heads up for a bit of a ~racy~ moment (not enough for me to bump it up to Mature if u ask me, but I’ll parenthesise the scene with an asterisk in case it makes u uncomfortable,) and for a panic attack. I’ll denote the panic attack with a double-asterisk in much the same way. Stay safe lovelies.

Lance’s face lit up when Keith stumbled into the kitchen that morning.

“Pidge owes me five bucks!” He cheered, turning away from his pan and thrusting his spatula to where she sat at the kitchen table. Keith’s face dropped into a confused pout, a hand coming up to scratch at his bedhead.

“Dammit Keith,” she cursed without any real venom, “you couldn’t’ve stayed asleep for thirty more minutes?”

He furrowed his brow. “I’d… I’d be late for work…” he muttered.

“That’s what they bet on,” Hunk explained. “Lance, the pancakes. They’re going to— _ Lance _ !”

Lance blinked, looking back in time to find Hunk shooing him, one hand already on the panhandle while the other reached across for the spatula. He sheepishly handed it back, Hunk tsking him while trying to salvage the now-smoking pancakes. Lance grimaced, stepping back to give him more leeway—experience had taught him to know far better than to stand between Hunk and his cooking.

“I’m usually a better sous-chef, I promise,” he assured Pidge and Keith, moving over to sit across from her on the kitchen table. “And better yet,” he added slyly, slipping his phone out the front pocket of his pyjama pants, “as a D.J.”

Pidge looked up from her plate, smirking over her pile of chocolate chip pancakes. Keith dropped heavily into the chair next to her, paying the comment little mind as he began shoveling pancakes onto his own.

The very thought set a cruel smile to tug against his cheeks, and he resisted it as best he could as he unlocked his phone, YouTube opening promptly to the video he’d already queued up in preparation for his triumph—for Lance was nothing if not dramatic.

Keith’s hands stilled as the opening guitar riff played through his phone’s loudspeaker, tinny through overuse but unmistakable nonetheless. The cutlery dropped from his hands as they curled into fists, banging down against the tabletop as he turned to Pidge, hardly able to contain his ire.

“ _ You told him _ ,” he seethed.

She shoved a forkful of pancakes into her mouth, shrugging. “That’s what you get for saying I lost ‘fuck me harder,’—”

“ _ You’re insecure! _ ” Lance interrupted, singing along to the first verse with gusto. “ _ Don’t know what for! You’re turning _ —c’mon, Keith, these are your boys!” Keith hid his face in his hands, groaning. Lance shot to his feet, pointing towards the stove. “Hunk, sing it with me!  _ Don’t need makeup! _ ”

“ _ To cover up _ ,” Hunk joined enthusiastically, pulling the spatula up as his microphone, the two of them singing to each other, “ _ being the way that you are is enou-ah-ough! _ ”

“ _ Everyone else in the room can see it _ ,” Pidge joined, ever the wildcard in their impromptu singalong sessions. She grinned, practically bursting with glee as she prodded Keith in the side.

Keith’s hands slipped away from his face, revealing a grin of his own, though he rolled his eyes to temper his laugh. “ _ Everyone else but you… _ ”

Lance whooped as the rest of them carried the chorus, arms thrown up in the air as he let the rhythm take control of his hips. Bound to the stove, Hunk could do little to join him, but he shimmied and swayed in place all the same. Lance thus turned to Pidge, beckoning her forward with outstretched arms. She shook her head fervently, but Keith threw an arm over her shoulder, pulling her along in a surprisingly eager back-and-forth. Obviously, if Keith had to suffer, he decided Pidge would have to as well.

As the chorus wound down, Lance faded the volume down, sitting back down in his chair and busying himself with breakfast as if nothing had happened.

“I’ve got to admit, I never pegged you as a Directioner, Keith.”

Keith scoffed, though a smile was still pinned to his cheeks. “Not a Directioner.”

Lance steepled his hands, resting his chin against them. “Which boy is your favourite? Oh! I bet it’s Harry. You know,” he motioned to his head, “‘cause of the hair.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s Liam,” Pidge corrected, swiftly dodging a retaliating kick under the table.

* * *

 

“You punched your principal  _ in the face _ ?”

Keith froze halfway through the threshold, blinking nonplussed and silent for a few moments before a cautious, amused smirk found its way across his features. “He had it coming.”

Lance sputtered through a laugh, his words finding no passage out until it subsided. “I’ve been waiting  _ all day _ to hear this story, and  _ that’s _ all you give me?”

Keith chuckled, stepping in and shutting the door gently behind him. “I’m guessing Pidge told you that?” Lance nodded. “Why not just ask her?”

Lance rolled his eyes, setting his laptop down on the coffee table. “She wouldn’t tell me, said you told it better—but I don’t really believe that. She just loves to see me suffer.”

Keith set his bag down before making a beeline to the kitchen. “You and me both, Lance.” Lance stood to quickly follow him into the kitchen, sitting up on the kitchen table while Keith went to a cupboard drawer, pulling out a pack of Oreos to snack on. “Is she not here?”

Lance shrugged, kicking his legs idly under him. “They were going to wait for you, but then she had a thing with her parents, and you were late, so…”

“Yeah,” Keith exhaled, leaning back against the counter and setting the Oreos down, but not before grabbing another handful of cookies. “One of the patients made a mess in an exam room, so Allura and I stayed back to clean ‘cause the vet couldn’t be assed.”

Keith chewed thoughtfully for a moment, before Lance couldn’t bear the silence any longer. “They’ll be back, though. For tonight.”

Keith nodded. “Why aren’t you with them?”

Lance laughed. “It’s apparently this tech thing—something her dad’s company’s been working on—and I’m not… into that sort of stuff.” He motioned a hand back towards the living room. “Plus I needed to dump my cards for tonight. Figured it safest.”

Keith hummed thoughtfully, his expression edging towards sober. He quickly turned to hide it, tossing the Oreos back into the drawer and turning back with his face schooled. “It’s the big one,” he said finally. “If there’s anywhere…”

_ Anywhere there’ll be guards, anywhere we’re going to get caught, anywhere we’re going to get  _ killed…

_ Anywhere we’ll find the proof we need. _

“Anywhere we need to play it safe,” Lance continued for him, “it’ll be here. Pidge and Hunk are already working with Matt to prep for tonight, that’s also what they’re doing over there.” Keith nodded slowly, his eyes shutting as he ran a hand through his hair. “You going to be okay?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

Lance’s computer chimed, and they both glanced back towards it, then to each other. Keith broke their tableau quickly, nodding towards it before leading the way out the room once more. Lance hopped off the table, tailing him.

Keith planted himself in front of the laptop, leaning forward to peer at the screen. He whistled lowly. “Shit, think you got enough footage?” He asked sarcastically, reaching out for the trackpad and scrolling past rows upon rows of video thumbnails.

Lance draped an arm over the back of the couch, turning towards Keith as he sat. “You can never have too much footage—back when everything was done on film, you had to be picky with what you taped, but with today’s technology, pretty much anyone with the time and the eye for editing can make a movie.”

Keith pulled a face as he scrolled. “I’m going to look so bad in all of these.”

Lance quickly silenced his immediate train of thought (‘ _ How can someone so gorgeous ever think that their presence on-camera would be anything less than dazzling, if anything Keith would make the camera look bad because of how it fails to capture his natural— _ ’) and opted for a response that was a lot safer, especially given his mind’s track-record when Keith was within kissing distance.

“Did this morning’s karaoke teach you nothing? Because if we need to have another sing-along, don’t you doubt for a moment that we will.”

Keith snorted, sitting back and abandoning the computer. “Spare me, please. Is that a regular thing for the three of you?”

Lance reached over to close the screen, leaning sideways into the couch once more and fixing Keith with a lazy grin. “Yep. Not every morning, ‘cause our classes don’t always align, but pretty much whenever we can.”

He laughed. “I can’t ever imagine getting used to that.”

Lance raised an eyebrow at him. “Keith, you remind me of a young girl I once knew.”

“Is it Pidge?”

He waved him silent. “Her name isn’t important. But when she first moved in with me, she was just like you: closed off, short-tempered, a bit of a stick up her ass. But this morning, she surprised me, surprised the  _ world _ , when she rocked the fuck out to One Direction’s smash 2012 hit—”

“2011,” Keith corrected. Lance smirked, and he blushed, ducking his head. “Shut up.”

Lance held up a hand in defense. “I didn’t say anything.”

He looked back up, grinning. “You thought it, which is bad enough.”

Lance laughed. “Okay, okay hang on, you distracted me!”

“Not a difficult feat.”

_ For you? Effortless. _ Lance rolled his eyes. “Tell me the story, O principal puncher.”

Keith laughed, tucking his legs beneath him and turning to face Lance better. “It’s not really a story. I got detention for something, and he came in to give me some sort of stupid speech about how I needed to learn discipline or whatever—the guy used to be a marine or something—and I got tired of taking his shit so I punched him.”

His jaw dropped. “You— _ what _ ? Just like  _ that _ ? To an honest-to-God  _ marine _ ?”

“ _ Former _ marine,” Keith amended, “and he wasn’t as tough as he let everyone think, he went down like a bag of rocks.”

Lance cackled, running a hand over his face. “Okay, help me out here, I’m trying to picture high school you, hardcore One Direction fan who knocked a marine out bare-handed because he didn’t want to get a talking-to. Did you have braces?”

Keith snorted. “Nope.”

“Did you get expelled?”

“Almost, Shiro had to plead my case so they’d let me stay.” His smile faded, eyes faltering to his lap. “Not that it mattered, since I decided to drop out like a month after anyway.”

Lance furrowed his brow. “Well hey, of course it mattered. You weren’t kicked out of school, you just dropped out.” He smiled meekly. “And yeah, I guess now that I say it, it doesn’t sound quite so glamorous, but it means you could always go back, if you really wanted to.”

Keith picked his nails, smiling shyly. “It could be a start. You know, once all of this—” he picked up his eyes, scanning his house in the early-evening sun, his brown irises shimmering golden when they caught the light just so “—is over.”

Lance’s mouth went dry, his heart starting to stir. He became aware of his staring, though Keith seemed either to not have noticed, or to not care. “How are you feeling about that?”

Keith sighed, his hands stilling and smile fading. “Better. I don’t… I’m not delusional, you know. I always knew this had to end somehow, either they’d win or I would. But I clung to it, told myself that if I thought about life after losing Shiro, I’d forget him—I’d  _ let _ him be forgotten. So I staked my claim, stayed put while everyone else moved on, and I convinced myself that this was the right thing to do. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t—I felt it, you know? It’s like…” 

He paused, the pregnant silence that filled the air roaring in Lance’s ears, urging him to reach out to Keith while paralysing him at the same time.

“Like when you know in your heart that something’s just bound to happen,” he continued, “that you can fight it as much as you want, but it won’t change anything. And no matter what you do to try and shut it out, it keeps coming up, stronger and stronger, and you push it away harder and harder each time.”

Lance’s fingers twitched against the couch, and he fought to keep them still. If only Keith knew how much he understood.

“But it’s been so  _ long _ , Lance,” he whined, “and I’m so tired. I can’t fight it anymore.”

Lance nodded, shifting closer. His skin was afire, pure lightning coursing through his veins. “Then it’s time to let go, isn’t it?”

Keith’s gaze fell, long eyelashes gently brushing against his cheekbones when he blinked. “It’s now or never.”

Now or never. Now or  _ never _ .

“Keith,” Lance called, his voice hardly a murmur but seeming to echo across the infinity spanning the few inches between them.

Keith finally looked back to him, posture relaxed, expression open. Unguarded, raw,  _ beautiful _ . “Hm?”

Lance opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. For a split second, his gaze slipped down to Keith’s lips, unpermitted, and those lips parted. He picked his eyes back up to Keith’s, and Lance could swear he saw his pupils dilate.

_ Now _ .

His free hand reached out, finding purchase on Keith’s upper arm, gripping the sleeve of his hoodie tightly and pulling himself forward, pulling Keith into him. He screwed his eyes shut as they crashed into each other, and Lance kissed him like a drowning man—desperate for his last gulp of air, his lungs seizing as they filled with water, sinking him deeper and deeper.

Keith’s fingers brushed against his jaw, orienting himself by touch before settling them against Lance’s cheeks. He pulled back a tad, using the leverage his hold afforded him to slot their lips together a little better. Then his grip shifted, fingers dragging down Lance’s throat and around before lacing themselves on the nape of his neck, pulling him closer in.

*

Holy shit, he was kissing Keith—and Keith was kissing him  _ back _ . Lance retracted the arm that he’d been leaning against, wedging it between Keith and the back of the couch to hook it around Keith’s lower back, and Keith hummed his approval, knee brushing against Lance’s thigh as he turned himself to face Lance better, the kiss rapidly gaining momentum as they continually broke off and reconnected. Lance opened his jaw just as Keith swept his tongue against his lower lip, the unexpected immediacy of the reciprocation leaving him gasping, his mind reeling. Keith took advantage of the momentary stupor to push his tongue past Lance’s parted lips, and Lance retaliated by pushing Keith backwards, reclining him over the armrest as he settled between his parted legs. His hand finally relinquished the grip it held against Keith’s sleeve, smoothing down his side before hooking behind his knee, tugging him down to get more of Keith under him rather than in front of him.

Keith seemed to like that, hooking his ankles behind Lance’s back and arching up into him. Lance groaned in response, pressing down and grinding their hips together. It made Keith’s breath hitch, fingers unlatching so they could grip onto Lance’s hair, the sensation not wholly pleasant, but the desperation it conveyed stoking the fire burning hot in the pit of his stomach. He pulled his arm out from under Keith’s back, dragging it along the hem of his t-shirt before reaching beneath it, dragging his hand up his stomach and feeling the muscles there jump beneath taught skin.

Keith broke the kiss, leaning his head back and baring the long column of his throat. “ _ Lance _ ,” he gasped, releasing his hair in favour of gripping his shoulders, pulling him tighter and exhaling a broken moan when Lance latched onto his neck and sucked. His legs tightened around Lance, knees pressing into his sides as he ground their hips together again, the drag long and deliberate—

*

Three loud bangs against the door was all it took to wrench them apart.

“Keith!” Pidge shouted, muffled behind the front door. “Have you even looked at your phone? We’re here!”

Keith’s hands were still on Lance’s shoulders from when he’d pushed them apart, his face a mere breath away. He stared at Lance in shock, mouth agape as he panted, and Lance had the feeling that if he hadn’t been so flushed he’d be white as a sheet.

Lance’s own chest heaved as the fog in his mind cleared, remembering himself after a moment and retracting his own hands from Keith, resting them on either side of his hips to hold himself up now. His heartbeat hammered in his ears, a steady tattoo that seemed to beat the mantra: ‘ _ you fucked up, you fucked up _ ,’ and all he could do was stare back down at Keith as that realisation washed over them both.

The pounding repeated against the door, and Lance snapped back to reality.

“Keith,” Lance hissed, “Keith, you’ve got to…” he glanced up towards the door, hoping to be understood.

Keith blinked, his vision seeming to clear, his jaw starting to work but not quite finding his voice until Pidge called again.

“Keith!”

He glanced towards it, clearing his throat before shouting back. “I—just—I-I’m coming! Hang on!” He looked back to Lance, brow furrowed with intent as he pushed against his shoulders once more. “Could you get off me?” he snapped.

Lance winced. “Not really, you’re kind of…” he trailed off, a hand coming around behind him and grabbing onto one of Keith’s ankles, trying to loosen their lock.

The frustration dropped off Keith’s face. “Oh.” He unhooked them, letting his legs drop as his gaze faltered to the side, hands pulling back to his chest. “Sorry.”

Lance quickly backed away to stand, smoothing down his hair and straightening out his clothes. Keith ducked his head as he rushed over to the door, doing much of the same on his way there. He was still combing fingers through the back of his hair when he pulled the door open, breathing out a cursory greeting as he stepped away to let Pidge and Hunk in.

“Where’s your phone?” Pidge griped as she led the way in, setting down a heavy backpack next to the coffee table without even bothering to kick her shoes off.

Keith pat down his pockets—though Lance knew for a fact he didn’t have it on him—before shrugging. “Probably in my bag.”

Hunk exchanged a greeting nod to Lance as he entered, which Lance wordlessly reciprocated. Hunk paused in the middle of toeing off his shoes, appraising him with a quirked eyebrow. Lance immediately panicked, wondering what had tipped him off, was it his hair? His shirt? A sock? He tried not to let his panic show, standing stock still—oh. It was the standing. He did his best to relax his posture, reaching into his pocket to pull out his own phone, leaning back against the armrest as he idly scrolled through his notifications (he’d missed a DM from his sister Estefania while he’d been… preoccupied. Huh.)

“We have a lot of prep work ahead of us,” Hunk told them. Lance looked up in time to catch the unease on his expression as he moved across the room, sitting heavily in the armchair.

“Apparently there’s a reason the other three were so easy,” Pidge continued as she moved to sit beside Lance, slouching off her bag and pulling out her netbook in the process. She opened the computer and centred the map of Douglas on the screen. “There wasn’t a whole lot to hide.”

“The other labs had been closed down a lot longer,” Hunk explained. “Whenever they had findings they wanted to hide, they moved the files from one lab to another, so this last one has all the information we need hidden inside. Everything in Keith’s SSD and so much more.”

“Matt seems to think that they’re conducting the research somewhere else that’s hidden now,” Pidge told them, “so it’s not like it’s active by any means, but it’ll still be monitored, and heavily.”

Keith sat on the other armrest, feet on the couch cushion so he could face her, elbows resting on his knees to lean down. “What’re we looking at?”

She sighed, triangulating the lab’s coordinates and marking them with a virtual pin on the map. “With any luck, no guards or sentries. It’s still forest so I think tripwire and booby traps in the surrounding area is a no-go too, what with the wildlife.” She chewed her lip. “Motion cameras are likely, probably wireless CCTV, so easy for me to disrupt, but only if we can know what we’re looking for.”

“Which is?” He prompted.

“Wires, glints off of lenses, hearing clicks. All we have to do is be vigilant, and try to not get caught before I can disable the camera.”

Lance pouted. “Sounds like it’ll be slow-going, not exactly the kind of fast-paced action this climax deserves.”

Hunk sent him an unimpressed look. “I’ll take slow over dead any day, dude.”

“Our patience might be rewarded,” Pidge promised. “Matt says it’s likely the clean-up job when they were high-tailing it out of there was negligent—I mean, hell, we’re probably the first people to even  _ want  _ to find these labs, let alone get coordinates—so it’s possible we find something they lost in the rush. Files, drives, evidence, you name it.”

“After two years, though?” Lance questioned. “Even if we do, they’ll probably be waterlogged past recognition.”

Keith flicked his gaze to Lance, his glare dangerous. “It’s still worth it, though.”

Lance held his hands up in defence. “Not saying it’s not, just saying, is all.”

Keith scoffed, turning back to Pidge. “Alright, so looking out for cameras and whatever shit they might’ve left, anything else?”

“We stick together, it’ll be a lot safer than the wandering we did before.  _ And _ , we stay on task.” She glanced up at Lance as she tacked on that last bit, and he gasped his offence.

“Rude! I’m laser-focused, Pidge.”

“You literally tripped over the site yesterday.”

He held a finger up in protest. “And  _ still  _ found it before any of you plebs.”

“Point is,” Hunk interrupted, “no wandering from the group, alright?”

Pidge looked to Keith pointedly. “For any reason.”

Keith folded his arms, turning away to glare at a spot on the floor.

She sighed, turning to Lance. “Is your camera ready?”

“Now?” He answered.

“We’re leaving as soon as it gets dark. It’s Friday so anyone who’s doing anything will either be in town or long gone.”

Lance furrowed his brow, glancing at his computer. “Yeah, I guess—I just need one more card dumped before we’re all set.”

She nodded, pushing to stand. “Alright, while you do that, Hunk and I will start packing up the car.” She looked towards Hunk for confirmation, and from the corner of his eye he could see Keith’s gaze (could practically feel it burning on him,) and his stomach dropped.

“Wait!” Lance practically yelped. “Why not—Hunk, why don’t you stay with me? Explain all this a bit more while I work. Pidge, you can catch Keith up while he helps you with the car.”

She blinked owlishly. “Uh… alright? I guess it doesn’t matter who helps me. C’mon, Keith.” She beckoned him with a hand, turning towards the front door.

Lance kept his eyes down, refusing to meet the meaningful look Keith sent him before turning away, doing his best to sell that he was intently focused on opening his laptop until he heard the front door creak shut.

“So!” He looked up to Hunk, taking charge of the conversation before he could get the chance to question Lance’s odd behaviour. “Ready to die, buddy?” (The perfect question, of course, to turn Hunk’s focus onto his anxieties rather than Lance’s own.)

* * *

 

In general, Lance wouldn’t call himself a coward, but he wouldn’t deny it if someone else affixed him with the label. He considered himself more self-preservationist than anything; he was prioritising self-care.

Right now though? Yeah, he was being a pure, right coward.

He’d avoided eye contact with Keith like the plague from the moment they’d piled into the car, dodging the pointed looks he’d been getting with the vain hopes that Keith would eventually tire and give up, and he’d essentially pasted himself to Hunk’s side, not allowing himself to get farther than spitting distance away for fear that Keith would try to talk about what had just happened. Lance knew it was selfish, and he knew it wouldn’t last, but procrastination was in his nature—avoiding uncomfortable situations was part of who he was.

If there was any respite at all, it’s that Hunk and Pidge clearly hadn’t caught on. He knew this, of course, because if either of them even had an inkling of a clue of what had transpired, they’d waste no time at all blurting out the accusation. He’d earned a couple of questioning glances from the pair for his behaviour so far, but nothing they could pinpoint to anything in particular, so they stayed mum and Lance and Keith’s secret was safe.

“Alright,” Pidge breathed, stepping back from the tree she’d been fiddling with the past few minutes, “that should do it. Good catch, Lance.”

Lance nodded, the other three of them tailing her as she led the way past the dismantled camera. “We must be getting close,” he mused, “that’s the third camera we’ve passed in a dozen yards.”

“Third we’ve  _ disabled _ ,” Hunk was quick to correct, trepidation in his voice.

Lance thwacked him heartily on the shoulder. “Nah we didn’t miss any, guaranteed! You’re out here with ol’ Hawkeyes McClain—that’s what they called me at church camp, summer of seventh—”

“Could you shut it?” Keith snapped, hunched over and sweeping his light swiftly across the ground, now overtaking Pidge. “What happened to staying focused?”

Lance straightened, taken aback by the venom in his tone. “What happened to  _ staying together _ ?”

Keith stilled, turning to glare over his shoulder at Lance while the others caught up. Once they got back to an acceptable range, he turned right back to his work.

Pidge sighed, knocking him gently with an elbow to catch his attention. “He’s really tense right now,” she apologised softly, Lance leaning over just a touch to hear her better, “he doesn’t mean it.”

Lance nodded, looking back to Keith again. She didn’t know what happened between them, didn’t know just how much was obviously on Keith’s mind right now. He nodded once more, stepping up and detaching himself from Hunk’s side, navigating instead to Keith’s.

Keith looked up curiously when he saw another beam of light join his, his expression dropping into a frown when he recognised Lance in the low light. “What are you doing?”

Lance scoffed. “What’s it look like? I’m helping you search.” Keith turned away, boring his glare into the grass now. “You’re right. We should be focusing on what we  _ came here to do _ ,” he added pointedly, hoping Keith would catch his drift.

Keith deflated with a sigh, the harsh lines of his face softening in profile. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Lance echoed, catching a glint out the corner of his eye. He halted, scanning the ground again to find it. “Did you see that?”

Keith stopped too, a few steps ahead. “See what?”

Lance dropped to crouch, running his hand delicately through the overgrown blades of grass and trying to feel for something. “It’s…” his face lit up when his finger brushed against something cold, grasping it then hoisting it triumphantly into the light.

“It’s a bottle cap,” Keith deadpanned. He turned back, wandering ahead once more.

“Keith,” Hunk whined, “you’ve  _ got  _ to wait up, man.”

Keith rolled his head back—obviously unsatisfied by a mere eyeroll, which would’ve been missed in the moonlight—and stilled, tapping his foot against the grass as he waited for Lance to get back on his feet, and for Hunk and Pidge to catch up.

“Soon as we break through the trees we can spread out a little more,” Pidge promised him, pointing up to the seemingly impenetrable darkness ahead, “it won’t be much longer.”

* * *

 

“Found another,” Pidge announced, holding up a glinting USB key as she pushed to stand.

Far from the exuberance he exhibited upon their discovery on the first night, Keith looked downright miserable with everything they found tonight. So far it hadn’t been anything too substantial—a USB here, an abandoned pen there, and at one point, a pair of shattered bifocals—but it piled up as they went along. Matt was right: the clean-up job had been terrible here.

Not ten feet ahead, Lance found a smattering of scattered file folders, crimped and stained from seasons upon seasons of being abandoned. “Got some files.” He poked at them with a toe, trying to decide whether or not it’d be worth getting dirt on his hands to pick them up (and edging towards ‘not.’)

Hunk knelt towards it, recording its discovery for posterity’s sake. Lance sighed, figuring the shot would probably look better if he actually got a closer look at it, reluctantly squatting down. A few paces behind him, Pidge wandered onward. A few paces ahead, Keith stilled. Lance pulled the cover daintily back, trying not to look to disgusted by the prospect of a spider flying out of the pages and attacking his face.

“Find something, Keith?” Pidge called out. Lance abandoned the folder just as quickly as he’d opened it, picking his head up to look at what had caught her eye. “Keith,” she called again when he didn’t respond, and still he didn’t acknowledge her.

Something heavy dropped in the pit of Lance’s stomach in the long, silent moment that followed. He furrowed his brow cautiously, moving to stand.

“Shiro..?”  Keith murmured. Suddenly, he dropped to his knees, and Lance broke into a run, taking the few necessary strides to get to him. “ _ Shiro _ ,” he repeated, his voice cracking as he reached desperately out to the mass he knelt before, hands just barely brushing against something before Lance caught his wrists, leaning over him to pull them away.

“Keith?” Lance wrapped his arms around his waist, yanking him bodily back and up onto his feet. He didn’t have the stomach to look at whatever Keith had found, so he opted instead to duck his head over Keith’s shoulder, trying to catch his eye. “Hey, listen to me—”

Keith bucked against his hold, shoes scuffing along the dirt as his hands worked to pry Lance’s grip apart. “Stop, get  _ off _ ,” he grunted, nails digging into the bared skin of Lance’s wrists, Lance gritting his teeth to hold fast as Keith tugged and twisted in his grip to no avail. “It’s Shiro, that’s  _ Shiro _ , that’s my—” he hiccoughed “—that’s my  _ brother _ .” Lance tried to walk him back a step, and his sobs started pouring out. “Stop, stop, stop,  _ stop _ , it’s—that’s…” He stilled against Lance’s chest, grip loosening, and Lance held him tighter still when his knees gave out under him, his head dropping as he slouched forward, giving in.

With Keith no longer struggling against him, Lance reached across to grab a handful of Keith’s sleeve and turn him away from the discovery, his other hand coming up to cradle his head, burying his weeping into his collar. Keith offered no resistance, opting to wrap his arms around himself as one of Lance’s rested across his back, bracing him tight against his chest, hoping Keith wouldn’t be able to feel just how fast his heart was racing.

He looked down at what he’d pulled Keith away from. He couldn’t see much of the darkened mass in the narrow beam of light Keith’s discarded flashlight, particularly for the brush that concealed a lot of it, but there were a few things that stood out to him in what it did catch: white fabric, ripped and stained, weathered bones, and lastly—caked in mud that dulled its glint—the elbow of a metal prosthetic arm.

His stomach flipped again, and he set his jaw to quell the nausea bubbling up. He forced himself to turn away, looking over Keith’s shoulder to Pidge, the pain in her wide-eyed expression reflecting the same kind stirring in his gut.

He took a deep breath, fixing his face into stony resolve. “Pidge, take the big camera from Hunk and get some shots. Someone’s got to keep the story straight.” He rubbed a hand into Keith’s lower back, a feeble attempt to soothe the both of them. “Hunk? Call the cops as soon as she’s done, we don’t want to raise any suspicion by waiting too long.”

Hunk nodded. “We’ve got it from here.”

Lance took an experimental step back, facing neither resistance nor compliance from Keith. “I’ll take him to the car.”

After another pitying glance from Pidge and Hunk, they turned away to carry out their responsibilities. Lance sighed, realising it was time for him to do the same. He tugged Keith gently backwards once more, tilting his head down and taking care to soften his voice.

“Hey,” he soothed, doing his best to take on as much of Keith’s weight as his hold could afford him, trying to coax him into moving, “we’re going back to the car, okay?” He repeated, certain that Keith had heard nothing of the conversation they’d just had.

**

Keith didn’t respond, although his feet started to cooperate, which Lance took as a small success. His triumph was short-lived, however, as Keith’s breaths sharpened against the fabric of his shirt. He hissed a curse under his breath, doing his best to quicken his pace in the awkward position he’d essentially locked himself into, glancing over his shoulder every few steps to try and gauge their distance from the treeline.

Keith was definitely having a panic attack now, if Lance had any doubts of it before. He grit his teeth, realising that holding Keith’s face into his collar probably wasn’t helping him breathe easier, nor was holding him like this in general highly advisable given his state, but Lance couldn’t let him go. Not until they were at the trees, not until he got Keith at least a little removed from the situation.

So he held fast, hauled him backwards, and tried to think of anything soothing he could mutter into Keith’s ear, all but positive he wouldn’t be able to hear it beneath the sound of his own crying.

“Keith, do you hear me? We’re almost there, we just have to keep walking, but I need you to start breathing. Can you do that for me?” He waits, no response. “C’mon Keith. Deep breaths, can you do that for me?”

He relinquished his hold a tad, leaning back to gauge Keith’s reaction. It comes in a swish of fabric, of Keith jerkily shaking his head ‘no’ against his chest.

“Well jeez, stubborn as ever,” he joked lightly, because he had to, because what else can you say to someone who sounds about ready to inhale his own tongue? He breathed a relieved sigh when he felt twigs and dried up leaves snapping underfoot, the canopy overhead casting a shadow over what little light was left. “It’s easy, deep breaths. Slow. Breath in,” he paused a moment, “then out. In… and out.”

When they both safely made it into the shade, he relinquished his death grip on Keith, stepping away to arms length with a firm hold on both of his shoulders. Keith still had his head bowed, thumbs kneading harshly into his forearms, but Lance could hear his shaky attempts at following the directive. It quickly falls apart after a few repetitions, and his shoulders sag as he gives up.

“I  _ can’t _ ,” he croaked out, promptly dissolving back.

“No no no, it’s okay,” Lance was quick to reassure. “I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to keep trying.” He let his hands drop, wrapping an arm loosely around Keith’s waist to guide him in the direction of the car—or at least in the direction he thinks it was in.

They proceed much the same way: stumbling blindly through the brush, Lance steering the both of them while whispering gentle encouragements to temper Keith’s hyperventilating. Endless minutes with nothing to fill the air but the crunch of the forest floor under their shoes and Keith’s erratic breathing. It occurs to Lance at some point that he was foregoing any and all of the precautions they’d been following earlier in the night, and he couldn’t really bring himself to keep them in mind. Right now, the only thing he could concentrate on was getting Keith back, was keeping him safe, trying to make up for his earlier fuck-up (because, for as selfish as it felt to think, deep down he knew part of this was on him. He might not have caused it, but his recklessness earlier today sure as shit hadn’t helped.)

The trees start thinning out ahead, and Lance held his breath, praying that they’ll part to reveal the car. “We’re almost there,” he breathed, unsure of who exactly he was addressing.

He pulled out the key fob and tapped the ‘unlock’ button, shoulders sagging in relief when he caught sight of flashing headlights up ahead, breaking through the forest and ushering Keith towards their minivan pulled off on the side of a dirt road. He opened the back door, releasing Keith to let him clamber into the back seat.

Keith did, immediately sliding over to the far end of the bench, pulling his feet up underneath him as he curled sideways into the door. Lance slid himself in, shutting the door as delicately as he could, incubating the two of them from the noise outside. Just as the door shut, another dam appeared to burst as Keith’s sobs return in earnest, face hidden in the knees he hugged against his chest, the sound reverberating through the cabin of the car.

Lance reached up to flick the cabin light on just as it started to dim, frowning apologetically as he tentatively scooted an inch closer. “Is it alright if I touch you, Keith?” He asked, admittedly belated. Keith shrugged, and Lance placed a gentle hand on his shoulder in the hopes of grounding him. “It’s okay—”

“It’s not,” Keith interrupted, voice hoarse and raw, “ _ nothing about this this _ is okay. He’s gone, Lance. We were supposed to take care of each other, that’s what he—” he hiccoughed “—he told me. That’s what family  _ does _ .”

Lance’s shoulders sagged. “None of this is your fault.”

“He did  _ everything  _ for me,” he picked up his head, finally looking at Lance, face flushed and brow furrowed as two years of emotion finally streamed out, “and I couldn’t manage this  _ one fucking thing _ .”

“You did your best,” Lance murmured. “You  _ found  _ him, Keith. And now we can finish his job, we can make sure what he did counted.”

Keith’s expression softened to something vulnerable, brow relaxing and eyes widening as he bit hit quivering lip, and to Lance he looked, for all the world, like that same little boy he’d seen hanging off his older brother in countless family photos.

“You can move on.”

Keith’s face crumpled, a new wave of tears spilling from his eyes before he buried his face in his hands. “I don’t want to move on, I just want my brother back.”

Lance set his jaw, unable to find the right words to say. He sighed, opting instead to wrap his arms around Keith, resting their heads together and deciding that if nothing else, he could stay with Keith as long as it took to ride this out. As he pulled Keith closer, he felt arms wrap around his waist, fingers tangling in his jacket as he kneaded the fabric to self-soothe.

**

As time passed, Keith inevitably came down, his tears subsiding, his breaths evening out, his fidgeting becoming gentler as it became less and less necessary. Eventually, he found his voice again.

“What time is it?” He croaked.

Lance pulled a hand away to search for his phone. As he did, Keith retracted both of his hands, sitting up and sliding away. Lance took the hint, allowing his other arm to slip off Keith’s shoulders as he finally pulled the phone from one of his coat pockets, reading the display.

“About half-past three,” he informed softly.

Keith nodded, rubbing his hands against his face. “I want to call my aunt and uncle,” he murmured, dropping his hands into his lap. “They deserve to know.”

“Why don’t you let me call them? You could use a break.”

“I can manage,” he insisted, his breath fluttering immediately after and casting doubt over the assertion.

Lance pursed his lips. “You don’t want to make them worry any more than they already will. Let me do this, okay?”

Keith studied him for a long moment, then sighed, dropping his gaze and pulling his phone out, fussing with it until he pulled up the correct contact, then holding it out for Lance to take.

He did. “Thank you. I won’t go far; if you need me, holler.” Keith simply leaned back against the car door, eyes going unfocused as he curled in on himself. Lance slid back to the other side, slipping out the door and closing it gently behind him.

He looked down at the phone, the screen displaying the contact for ‘Shirogane Home.’ He took a couple steps away from the car, trying to formulate the right opening line, and coming up short countless times.

After minutes of pacing and contemplation, Pidge and Hunk appeared from the treeline, feet dragging as their faces revealed the exhaustion they all shared. Lance attempted a weak smile, holding a hand up in greeting as he stepped up to meet them partway.

“How’s he doing?” Pidge asked, concern pinching her brow.

Lance glanced back to the car, before returning her gaze. “Better. I mean,” he brought his free hand up, running it through his hair, “as good as you can be, in a situation like this.”

She frowned, her gaze slipping to the car, fingers tugging at the fraying cuffs of her brother’s old jacket. She shook her head, words obviously failing her. Hunk rested a hand against her shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.

“Go see him,” Lance told her.

Pidge flicked her gaze back to him, eyes wide. “What? I…” It then faltered to the floor, and she shook her head again. “I can’t. I’m not like you, I wouldn’t know what to say.”

Lance sighed, understanding her reluctance. “Pidge, he doesn’t need a wordsmith right now, he just needs his best friend.” She looked back to him, and he offered an encouraging smile. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s enough for you to be there for him.”

Her shoulders sagged, and she did her best to reciprocate with a grateful one of her own. “Thanks Lance,” she breathed, slipping past him and towards the car.

He looked to Hunk, breathing out a “c’mon,” before turning on his heel, leading them to the trunk. He unlatched it and hoisted it up, pulling out his laptop and opening it up as Hunk busied himself with freeing the cards from their two cameras. They worked in practiced synchronicity, Lance grateful to have a friend who’s known him so long, words were no longer necessary. He slid the now unlocked laptop to Hunk, pulling Keith’s phone out from his back pocket and opening it up, dialing the number without allowing himself another second to prepare.

He took a step away from the car, idly keeping an eye on the other three as the dial tone rang once, twice, thrice, then…

“Hello?” Someone mumbled on the other end, Lance unable to discern if it was Keith’s uncle or his aunt who’d picked up.

“Hi there,” he greeted softly, trying his best to sound friendly. “Sorry for the late call, by the way. I’m a friend of Keith’s, and…” his brain stalled.

“Is he okay?” The other end asked immediately.

“Yes, yeah he’s okay, but…” he sighed, dropping his cheery façade a touch. “There’s no easy way to say this, but we found Shiro. We found Shiro’s  _ body _ ,” he clarified.

The line crackled, and Lance bit his lip, waiting for the other person to grapple with this. “Is he  _ okay _ ?” They asked again, and it was clear that the question had changed.

“He’s having a hard time with it,” he answered, “I’m sure you can imagine.”

“Can we come see him?”

“I’ll send you the directions.”

They gave a relieved sigh. “Thank you, we’re on our way.”

Lance nodded, then the line went dead. He sighed, stepping back to the trunk of the car and setting the cellphone down, resting both hands on the lip and hanging his head. He’d figure out what to text them soon, but right now he needed a breather while he processed it all.

“Holy shit,” Hunk suddenly said. Lance looked up curiously, Hunk’s gaze meeting his after a long moment, his face drawn in an exhausted impassivity. “Right?” He gave a sympathetic smile.

Lance pulled his hands from the car, reaching out for a hug that Hunk was already going for. “Holy  _ shit _ ,” he echoed, finding what little respite he could in the warmth of a familiar embrace.

* * *

 

The sun was already peeking out from the horizon by the time the six of them stumbled into Keith’s house. Every fibre in Lance’s body ached for even just a wink of sleep on his lumpy couch, but he knew as much as everyone else that there was no time to rest right now.

It was pure luck, really, that the sheriff hadn’t shown up when they’d inevitably called the police, only a pair of officers who were dumb enough to buy that they were aspiring YouTubers, and let them off once they had the situation under control. That had bought them precious time, but it was evident to everyone that their good fortune was under a heavy time constraint.

They needed to get Keith out of Douglas, and fast.

His aunt and uncle led the charge, divvying up the house between all of them and managing the logistics. Lance and Hunk were working on the kitchen, wrapping dishes up with newspaper and masking tape, clearing out drawers as quickly as they could into storage bins, cardboard boxes, and anything else that could contain whatever possessions Keith had left. Pidge worked with the Shiroganes on the more personal aspects of the household: everything from the living room, to the bathroom, to the closet, and Shiro’s vacated bedroom.

They left Keith’s room to him, and Keith to work by himself. Initially, in fact, they’d offered to Keith the chance to rest up, but he’d refused. Lance couldn’t blame him; after tonight, he didn’t really know how he was ever going to sleep again.

Pidge poked her head in the doorway. “Hey, my mom’s going to be over soon, she’s volunteered to bring over my car to help.” Her voice was scratchy and dimmed from the all-nighter, but it lilted with hope.

“Good to hear,” Hunk responded. “More hands and more cars. The sooner we can get out, the better.”

“You guys coming along okay in here?”

Lance nodded. “Just a few more drawers and we’ll be all set. You?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t realise how much shit Keith’s been collecting over the years, but… I think we’ve got most of the important stuff packed, anyhow. I’ll let you get back to it.” She slipped away, in as much a hurry as the rest of them to get this done.

Lance wrapped a mug in newspaper, pursing his lips in thought. “Hey bud, d’you think you can handle the rest?”

Hunk worked quickly on the dishes set out before him, wrapping three in the time Lance was taking on one of his own. “Do you need a break?”

He set the mug down on the counter. “Just a little one.”

“Alright,” he acquiesced, though Lance could tell he didn’t like it, “I’ll man the fort.”

Lance gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks, buddy. If there’s anyone who can handle himself alone in a kitchen, I know it’s you.”

Hunk breathed a small chuckle, and it felt almost foreign to Lance. It had been less than twenty-four hours since this room had been filled with their laughter and song, but now the memory felt centuries away.

He left the kitchen, walking through the now-barren living room, past the couch that had been his bed for this past week, to the back hall. There had been hardly any photographs framed on the walls when he’d first passed them, but now they were utterly bare, and it made the ache in his heart grow sharper still. He shoved his hands in his pockets, tiptoeing towards his final goal.

He ultimately arrived, facing down the same wooden door he’d needed to psych himself up to knock on mere days ago. He didn’t bother with manners this time, turning the knob gently and pushing it open with enough care not to draw anyone’s ear.

Keith stood at the side of his bed, whatever belongings able to fit piled up onto every available surface. His file folders and loose papers were all pushed into the corner behind the door, relegated there to accommodate his work. He kept his head down as he picked clothing from a pile atop his bedspread, giving no acknowledgment to Lance’s presence as he folded an article at a time, packing it into the opened suitcase sat before him before moving quickly to the next.

Wordlessly, Lance went to the other side of the bed, reaching into the pile and intent on halving the task. He watched Keith work from the corner of his eye, stealing a couple furtive glances a second.

“I never knew you had so many clothes,” he broached cautiously, “I figured all you wore were black t-shirts and skinny jeans.” Keith made no move to acknowledge him, not even breaking his pace. Lance swallowed past a lump in his throat, trying again. “Bet it makes matching easier though, y’never have to worry about clashing colours when—”

“Why did you kiss me?” He interrupted, hands stilling in his pile of yet-to-be-packed clothes.

Lance froze. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Keith looking expectantly to him from across the bed. He picked up his own eyes, deciding he had to be brave enough to return his gaze, his face cautiously impassive, a carefully crafted blankness to contrast the plea written across Keith’s.

He takes a deep breath, trying to steel himself, and shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s the time—”

“Oh come on, don’t bullshit me, man.” His voice wavered, already sounding on the verge of tears. “I’ve been through enough today, I just want one straight answer.”

Lance brought a hand up, rubbing his temple, the exhaustion suddenly hitting him harder, the guilt cresting yet again. “Keith  _ please _ , we’ve got far more pressing shit to deal with right now, does it really matter—”

“It matters to me,” he insisted, tears rimming around narrowed eyes. “And it matters right now. You’ve been avoiding me, you won’t even look me in the eye, and now you come in here and—what—I’m supposed to pretend it never even  _ happened _ ? I’m so confused. Please, just tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Lance deflated, his resolve crumbling in the face of Keith’s desperation. “It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to,” he confessed.

“You didn’t…” Hurt flashed across his expression. “Oh, well that’s fucking  _ great _ ,” he snarled, returning to his work with notable sharpness.

“No— _ dammit _ ,” Lance cursed, quickly moving to round the bed, “that’s not what I meant,” he pleaded.

Keith made it clear that he was ignoring him now, and Lance remedied that by pulling the suitcase shut. He huffed, looking up at Lance with a dangerous expression. 

“This.” He gestured around. “This is why I didn’t want to kiss you. Right now you’re going through… just  _ so much shit _ , and us?” He motioned between the two of them. “Whatever the hell’s going on between you and me? That was the last thing you needed.” Lance sighed, his voice softening. “So I’m sorry. It was a mistake, and I shouldn’t have done it.”

His anger faltered, but he didn’t look away. “So then why did you?”

Lance ran a hand through his hair, groaning. “Fuck, because I  _ want you _ , Keith.” He pulled the hand to his face, rubbing against his forehead and shielding his eyes so he didn’t have to look at Keith—he didn’t think he could, right now. “All of you, the stupid fights, the four A.M.s on your kitchen floor, this whole  _ mess _ .” It tapered off with a short, self-deprecating laugh, and he hung his head when it was finished, dropping his hand but still unable to look Keith in the eye.

“I want you too,” Keith confessed softly. “God, my life is so fucked up right now,” he groaned, hiding his face in his hands.

Lance ventured to look at him now, catching an undeniable tremble in his form. “ _ Keith _ ,” he admonished, pulling him into a tight embrace. Keith reciprocated immediately, arms wrapping around him as he rested his chin on Lance’s shoulder, holding on for all he was worth. “You need to focus on settling. You’re about to go through a lot of really hard shit that I’m just not equipped to help you with—we’ve only known each other  _ five days _ . What you need right now is your family. Your aunt and uncle, the Holts, Allura—they’re the only ones who matter right now. Everything else is secondary.”

Keith pulled away in his hold, looking at him timidly. “Would you wait for me?”

Lance furrowed his brow. “…Wait?”

Keith nodded, gaze slipping askance. “You’re right. I need to sort all my shit out, and I can’t ask you to go through that with me. But… my parents only live about a half hour away from your college, and… if you’re willing to wait for me to be ready, then I want to give this a try.” He looked back shyly. “So… would you?”

Lance… was at a loss for words. He hadn’t even  _ considered  _ Keith moving closer to be a possibility. “You’ll only be a half hour away?”

“There’s nothing for me here, anymore. Even if I could come back…” he paused, collecting himself with a breath, “I can’t do this by myself.”

“You won’t have to anymore,” Lance assured.

Keith gave a grateful, albeit watery, smile. “I’ll be close enough to the clinic that I can keep my job, and it’ll be great to see Pidge more often. It’ll be almost like when we were kids.”

“And you’ll see more of me and Hunk,” he added.

He picked up his eyes. “So—”

“Yes,” Lance answered, before he could ask again, “of  _ course  _ I’ll wait. However long it takes.” He closed his eyes, leaning forward to rest their foreheads together.

His grip on Lance’s shirt loosened, hands sliding up to rest on his shoulders. “Promise you’re not going to try and seduce any vet techs in the meantime?”

Lance smirked. “We saw how well that went the last time.”

“What, you mean how she rejected you?”

“I meant more the part where I went home to make out with her secretary instead.” Keith brushed their noses together, leaning forward to place a chaste kiss against Lance’s lips. Lance breathed a contented hum. “Yeah, I’m okay to wait for that.” He pulled out of their hold, letting his arms fall to his sides as he smiled gently at Keith. “Now let’s get the fuck out of this town.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bc relationships won’t fix mental illness and trauma, but having people around to support you as you seek recovery can help. They technically don’t get ‘together’ as it were by the end of the story proper, but that’s what epilogues are for~
> 
> If you’re enjoying this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance’s documentary is finally ready to submit, and a special someone comes to visit for its grand premiere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT’S TIME FOR THE FLUUUUUUUUUUUUUFF. Because who the fuck would I be if I didn’t give Dese Bois a happy ending.
> 
> Also special shoutout again to Oneyedkaneking on Tumblr for fixing my atrocious Spanish and saving all of u from having to suffer through that lol

“Pidge,” Lance warned, “I swear to God if you don’t get off that couch  _ right this second _ I’m vacuuming  _ you  _ up.”

“Chill the fuck out,” she mumbled around a mouthful of Cheetos, brushing the dust that had collected on the front of her shirt onto the carpet he’d  _ just vacuumed, thank you very much! _

“Lance,” Hunk called from the kitchen, “has anyone ever told you that you resemble your mom when you’re getting ready for guests?”

Lance gave a scandalised gasp, pressing his feather duster against his chest. “Hunk, how dare you? I am nothing like my mother. She’s always all ‘ _ ay, lancito, guarda todo en tu cuarto, ¡Tendremos invitados! _ _ ’  _ Even though, like, why the hell’s anyone going in  _ my  _ room? And I’d tell her that, but then she’d be all: ‘ _ Todo debe de estar limpio para cuando lleguen los invitados, mira estos cajones, ¿Y si miran dentro de los cajones? ¡Oh! Se reirán de nosotros. ¡Qué vergüenza! _ ’” He scoffed, dropping the duster behind the couch and exchanging it with Pidge’s backpack, dragging it and its hundred pounds of contents into her bedroom. “And I am  _ nothing  _ like that,” he called back.

“Hey,” she protested, “I was about to use that!”

He huffed, hands going to his hips as he came back to the living room. “Then take out the book you need and leave the rest in your room, you goddamn animal!”

“I don’t get what your deal is, it’s just Keith!”

He sputtered. “ _ Just _ Keith?  _ Just Keith _ ?!”

“Now you’ve done it,” Hunk joked.

He motioned at Hunk for silence. “This is the first time I’m seeing him since we started dating, and I want to make a good first impression, which starts by cleaning up at least enough that he doesn’t think we live in a pigsty.” He curled his nose as he looked around again, lamenting the fact that his class schedule hadn’t given him enough time to give the whole apartment the deep clean it truly needed.

“You’ve already made your first impression,” she pointed out, sucking Cheeto dust off her fingers, “totally bombed it, and he’s still called you every day for the past month.”

“Ugh, but it’s  _ different  _ this time,” he insisted, draping himself dramatically over the back of the couch. “Now there’s, like, expectations or whatever.”

“Literally nothing’s changed. All that’s different is that instead of talking to each other in different rooms, you’re going to be talking to each other in the same room.”

“Not true; there’s some things you can only do in real life—well, I guess you can  _ pretend  _ to do it over the phone, but…”

Pidge leaned back to eye Hunk in the space over Lance’s shoulder. “I can’t tell, is he being gross?”

“It’s Lance,” Hunk explained, “if you don’t get it then he probably is.”

“I don’t have the  _ time  _ to deconstruct sexual morality with you guys,” Lance whined, “he’s going to be over any minute and I’m freakin’ out over here.”

Pidge sighed. “Alright, if I know anything about Keith—and I literally know everything—it’s that you can’t possibly fuck this up, Lance. Unless you forget how to open up the front door when he knocks, you’re golden.”

“And if you do,” Hunk added, “then we’ll be glad to show you how.”

Lance pushed himself off the couch, grabbing the feather duster whilst wiping away a fake tear or two. “How was I so blessed to have found such kind and wonderful friends?” The intercom buzzed, and Lance leapt out of his skin. “Wait! He can’t be here yet, I’m not ready! Tell him to go away!”

Hunk sighed, walking over to answer the intercom. He pressed the button and leaned towards the mic. “Hey Keith, Lance wants you to go away.”

“Hunk!” Lance squawked, rushing over.

“Uh… okay?” Keith’s voice crackled through from the other end.

He shooed Hunk away with the duster, pressing his own finger onto the intercom. “He’s lying, come right up.”

“Alright,” Keith answered, Lance lifting his hand from the ‘answer’ button to buzz him up, reaching over to unlatch the door immediately after.

“Traitor,” he hissed, spinning on his heel to pout at Hunk.

Hunk lifted his hands innocently, his shit-eating grin negating the very act as he backed away from Lance. He heard Pidge snicker from the couch, and he whipped his head over to glare at her, giggling over something on her phone, instead.

“Are you texting him?” He deadpanned.

“No…” she denied unconvincingly.

“Forget what I said earlier,” he griped, pacing over to the closet and throwing the feather duster in, “you two are the  _ worst _ .” There was a knock on the door, and Lance practically leapt across to snatch the doorknob, paused a second to take a deep breath (and remember how exactly to  _ just play it cool, baby _ ,) then opened the door, grinning wide. “You made it!” He pulled Keith into a tight hug, and after a momentary hesitation, he reciprocated.

“Hey, it’s good to see you,” he replied softly.

Lance pulled back, clasping their hands together loosely as he took the sight of Keith in. “You look… amazing.” And it was true: the permanent dark circles around his eyes had faded significantly, his skin had a helluva lot more colour to it, his arms and chest filled out and toned as a testament to the exercise his therapist had recommended he start.

And that was another part: Keith simply looked  _ better _ . He no longer appeared to carry constant tension in his face and shoulders, and in what Lance had seen from countless Skype calls and an all but incessant texting chain, he smiled more broadly since they’d last met, spoke more openly, tackled life a bit more realistically. Little by little, he was healing.

He flushed, eyes fluttering to the floor. “Thanks, you look…” He looked back in Lance’s eyes now, his smile growing.

“Like a zombie?” Pidge supplied.

Keith laughed, and Lance gasped. “Ass!” He cursed her.

“A bit,” Keith replied. Lance turned his offended glare on him, and he laughed again. “Sorry, it’s true!”

Lance huffed, dropping their hands and turning back to claim a spot on the couch. “Well  _ excuse me _ , I’ve been working on your documentary day-and-night, it’s not my fault I have to sacrifice one kind of perfection—” he gestured to his face “—for another.”

“You said you were finished a week ago,” Keith pointed out whilst Hunk scooped him up for a hug.

Lance rolled his eyes. “I  _ was _ ,” he shooed Pidge’s feet back, dropping into the sinky cushion, “but it just didn’t feel right to me, so I went back to tweak a few things—then some parts just didn’t flow right, and I scrapped a whole three minutes because it was like ‘ _ what are you even doing here? _ ’, then I cried for a bit because I needed to scrap  _ three whole minutes _ —”

“Then he had to rewatch  _ Avatar _ ,” Pidge supplied.

“Then I had to rewatch  _ Avatar _ , it was a whole thing.” He waved it off.

Keith leaned over the back of the couch, regarding him curiously. “But it’s done now?”

Lance hummed undecidedly. “More or less.”

Hunk snorted. “You have to hand it in today,” he pointed out, leaning his elbows onto the back of the couch, next to Keith.

“Alright fine, then it’s done.” He rubbed his tired eyes. “‘M sick of seeing it anyway.”

“When are we going?” Keith asked.

“We’ve got an hour before we’ve got to be there,” Lance replied, “so maybe in twenty?”

Pidge poked Keith’s shoulder with a toe. “You’ll let us know how bad it is, right?”

Keith whacked her foot away, as Lance grumbled, “don’t make me regret this any more than I already do.”

Keith clasped a gentle hand on his shoulder, giving it an encouraging squeeze. “Hey, if it’s bad, at least I won’t know the difference.”

Lance clapped a hand over his heart. “ _ Мi corazón _ . Y’know, when I win an Oscar, my speech is going to go: To Keith Kogane, whose encouraging words ‘I can’t tell if it’s shitty’ never failed to inspire me.”

“You guys haven’t seen it?” Keith asked the others.

“Lance is too self-conscious to let us,” Hunk answered.

Lance tilted his head back, looking to Keith with pleading eyes. “Promise me you won’t break up with me if it’s bad.”

Keith clasped his hands together, looking off into the distance in mock-contemplation. “Shit, I don’t know, do I  _ want  _ to date someone who failed out of a Fine Arts major? Hmm…”

“Quoth the high school dropout,” Pidge snickered.

Keith scoffed. “I’m getting my G.E.D. soon, don’t  _ rush  _ me.”

“Mm, I just love a man with an education,” Lance teased, leaning back to grin lecherously at Keith. “Tell me more about how to graph a parabola, that’s so  _ sexy _ .”

Keith rolled his eyes, pushing off the couch and turning back towards the kitchen. “Can we eat first? I’m fucking starving.”

“Say no more!” Hunk exclaimed, his voice fading as he led Keith back to the kitchen. “I whipped up some four-alarm chili last night and, let me tell you, the leftovers are almost better the day after.”

Lance smiled softly, overhearing the faint conversation carrying on in the other room with a relaxed giddiness.

“You’re smitten,” Pidge interrupted his thoughts, her smirk evident in her tone.

He looked back to her, scoffing. “Am not,” he denied, burying his dopey grin into his shoulder.

“I’m glad,” she admitted softly. “After everything he’s been through, he needs someone who’s stupid in love with him. You two dummies deserve each other.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She shrugged. “It was supposed to be.”

“Has anyone ever told you to write a romance novel, Pidge?” She laughed, kicking him in the side.

* * *

 

“—so she texts me and it’s like ‘backroom  _ now _ ,” Keith narrated, eyes scanning the posters and signs that covered the hallway they navigated through Lance’s college. “And at this point I can hear squawking so I already kind of know something’s happening. So I go back and I can hear her cursing at this bird, and like… protocol’s that I knock because the last thing you need’s a runaway… or, I guess a flyaway?”

Lance laughed, the weight of Keith’s hand in his light compared to the USB sitting heavily in his pocket, but he allowed the story to distract him from his trepidation. “An escaped convict.”

“Basically,” Keith agreed. “So yeah, I knock and she’s like, ‘ _ get in here _ ,’” he hissed, imitating her tone but leaving the accent out, “so I do, and she’s like… the bird’s in her hair, and I have no idea how it happened, but it’s absolutely wrapped up, like picture a fly that’s about to be eaten by a spider, except with claws and a beak and it’s  _ shrieking _ , I don’t know how no one called the police to report a domestic. It took me a good ten minutes to wrestle the poor thing free, then another five to get it back in the cage, because as soon as he was free he  _ obviously  _ was not keen on the two of us.” He laughed, rubbing a hand on his forehead. “So  _ that  _ was my Tuesday, I don’t think Allura’s going to try another ponytail anytime soon. How’s your week been?”

“Nothing quite so exciting,” Lance admitted, swinging their hands together as he scanned for the right room number. “Going to class, working on assignments, bingeing cartoons instead of working on my assignments… I called Marianna last night.”

Keith hummed. “How’s Ethan’s fever?”

Lance smiled softly, caught once again off-guard by Keith’s attention to detail when it came to such little things. “Better. He’s still playing it up so he can stay home from school, though.” They shared a laugh. “She also says she still doesn’t believe you’re real, which is just code for wanting to meet you. Which, by the way, we are  _ not  _ doing ‘Meet the McClain’s’ anytime soon. Preferably ever.”

“I don’t know man,” Keith replied, “I’m curious to see where you got your crazy from.”

“Which is  _ why  _ I don’t want you meeting them. I want to take this slow.”

“You stuck your tongue in my mouth on day four of knowing me.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “I don’t usually move that fast.”

“No, but I do.” Lance choked on a snort, and Keith grinned triumphantly.

The numbers on the doors inevitably approached the office number he was looking for, and his heart fluttered nervously. He nudged Keith with his shoulder, leading them both towards their destination on Keith’s side of the hallway. “Well, here goes nothing,” he commented as he knocked on the office door, their fingers slipping unclasped.

“Wait wh—” Keith sputtered, pointing to the nameplate on the door, “is  _ this  _ your professor?  _ Coran _ ?”

Lance shot him a curious glance, opening his mouth to question it. Before he could, however, the door swung open, revealing the man of the hour himself. “Lance!” He greeted cheerily, eyes flicking then to: “And, Keith?” He raised an eyebrow, giving a good-natured laugh. “My boy, it’s quite a shock to see you here, with…  _ Oh _ .” Realisation dawned on his face, then fell away with another laugh. “Well I suppose a bit of the mystery is spoiled now, but never the matter! Come on in, you two!” He beckoned them with a hand, then turned back to sit behind his desk.

“You two know each other?” Lance asked, taking his place in one of the rickety wooden chairs sat before Coran’s desk, while Keith moved to occupy the other.

“Yes!” Coran confirmed, typing away at his computer. “He’s dear friends with my niece. In fact, the two of them work together.”

“Allura?” He asked, earning a tight nod from Keith. “So wait—the uncle—the  _ riding mower _ —” He was silenced by kick in the shin and a warning glare.

Coran’s fingers stilled on the keyboard, and he eyed Keith quite inquisitively. “So the evidence mounts,” he commented vaguely.

“I—” Keith tried to refute, but he quickly recognised he had no cards in hand, so he clamped his mouth shut and averted his gaze.

Coran shook his head, smirking lightly, then held a hand out to Lance. “Your masterpiece, if you would.”

Lance gave a nervous laugh, fishing the USB out of his jeans pocket. Coran always insisted on calling his projects ‘masterpieces’ or ‘œuvres,’ but Lance never had the confidence to do as much. He smiled broadly as he accepted it, plugging it in and muttering approvingly at the file screen that popped up. He then steepled his hands together, looking to Lance expectantly.

“Alright my boy, you know the drill.”

Lance shifted under his patient gaze—wondering for the hundredth time since his first such meeting with Coran if it wouldn’t be more unnerving if he simply looked bored, or distracted, or anything but so keenly rapt to Lance’s nervous bumbling. He reminded himself to breathe, unsure of when the last time he’d done so was, hands kneading together on his lap. 

“I think… I think the best way to describe this is… it’s a love story.” Coran quirked an eyebrow, and Lance’s confidence gained a bit of momentum. “Of sorts. The family that you find, and the dedication you show to one another.” He looked over to Keith, trying to conceal a fond smile. “It’s also a story about Keith’s bravery, in a lot of ways.” Keith blushed, covering it up with a brush of his bangs while his gaze diverted away. He looked back to Coran. “And I think by the end of it, you’ll agree with me that it’s an important story to share with a wider audience.”

Coran nodded, then turned his focus on Keith. “Anything you’d care to add, Keith?”

Keith nearly seemed to start, not expecting the addressal. “Oh, well I didn’t have anything prepared like Lance, and I haven’t seen the final product, but…” he shrugged. “I think Lance was right. But it’s not just one love story. It’s many.” He snuck a not-so-furtive smile Lance’s way. “And… we stopped filming at a pretty low point in the story, but I hope that you come away and know it isn’t a tragedy. There’s lots of shit that we all go through in life, but through all of that hope can prevail if you hold out. It doesn’t negate the past, but it can help rebuild your future.”

Lance smiled broadly. “Well jeez, he said it better than I ever could.” He turned to Coran, lifting a hand to conceal his mouth from Keith and stage-whispering, “can that get me extra credit?” Keith whacked him playfully on the shoulder, the three of them sharing a laugh.

“Alright,” Coran announced, “well if it’s okay with the both of you, I’d like to start.” Lance motioned his go-ahead, standing up from his chair to flick off the overhead light—as was customary for the two of them—and returning to have the opening overhead drone shot of Douglas casting them all in a dimmed glow.

* * *

 

Over the sizzling of his frying pan, Lance could hear the sound of his bedroom door opening, followed by lethargic steps padding over on the hardwood. He smiled down to the stovetop, stirring the scrambled eggs as the footfalls drew nearer.

“Just in time, I’m making eggs.” He was pressed into the oven door when a weight collapsed into his back, arms wrapping around his midsection as a mess of dark hair settled on his shoulder.

He leaned his own head to rest on it, revelling in the warmth pressing into him as he flicked the stovetop off. Keith muttered something of a greeting into his neck, but nothing Lance could really discern.

“Who’d’ve thought you of all people were a cuddler? I never would’ve guessed when we first met.” Keith muttered something else, and this time it sounded a lot less kind. Lance laughed softly, lifting the pan and pushing the contents evenly onto two plates he’d set on the counter. “As weird as I find it, I think I kind of like that you only do it when we’re alone; it makes me feel special.” He set the pan down and took Keith’s hands in his own, softly prying them off so he could turn to face him.

Keith lifted his head, eyes half-lidded as he graced Lance with a gentle smile. “Maybe I’m just embarrassed; I don’t want people knowing I like you.”

Lance poked him on the nose. “But you  _ do  _ like me, you admit.”

Keith snorted, rolling his eyes. “‘Cause you make me eggs.”

“And I’m cute,” Lance added, draping his arms over Keith’s shoulders.

Keith grinned, wrapping his arms around Lance again. “A little bit.”

“And,” Lance continued, “an artistic genius.”

Keith sucked on his teeth, faking dissent. “I don’t know. Artistic? Yeah. But genius? Hmm…”

“Ouch, that hurts man,” Lance laughed, lifting a hand to start smoothing down Keith’s wild bedhead. “Speaking of though, we’ve got another interview today.”

Keith groaned, his good mood faltering as he pouted. “Really? We  _ just  _ had one yesterday.”

Lance smiled sympathetically, his own feelings about the interviews a bit more sweet than bitter (sure they were work, but they were the main reason he’d seen Keith so much over the summer, and with Pidge busy settling with her family into their new home, and Hunk gone for most of the break at a summer seminar, it was nice to not have to come home to an empty apartment all the time.)

“This one’ll be over the phone, so we could do it in our pyjamas if we really wanted.”

Keith sighed. “I don’t really know if that makes it better or worse. I hate phone calls, I can barely tell what people mean when I’m talking face-to-face, take away my chance to read their expression and it’s a recipe for disaster.”

“It’s better than doing a breakfast show,” Lance pointed out.

Keith shuddered. “You’re damn right about that.”

Lance barked out a laugh, arms tightening around Keith when he tried to step out of their embrace. “Wait, wait! You forgot something.”

“What?”

Lance shut his eyes tight, pursing his lips as he leaned a touch forward. Keith scoffed, pulling him tighter while Lance relaxed his face to properly accept the soft press of Keith’s lips on his own. Lance hummed his content, the chaste kiss lasting no longer than a few seconds, but still managing to make his heart quicken in his chest.

Keith broke away first, slipping out of Lance’s grasp with a dopey grin pinned to his cheeks, grabbing a plate and taking it over to the kitchen table. “Thanks, Lance,” he said softly, adding after a moment: “not for the eggs.”

Lance grabbed his own before tailing Keith, claiming the seat across from where he’d settled. “Don’t knock ‘em yet, you haven’t even  _ tasted  _ them,” he joked.

Keith made to kick him under the table, but it materialised as a mere brush of his ankle against Lance’s shin, his foot hooking affectionately behind Lance’s heel almost immediately after. “Fine, not  _ just  _ for the eggs, then.” He smiled warmly. “For everything. I never thought my life could be anything like this, and it’s all because of you.”

Lance smiled, reaching out to take Keith’s free hand over the table. Keith obliged, Lance rubbing his thumb back-and-forth over his knuckles. “That was all you, Keith. I just filmed it.”

Keith shook his head. “You did so much more than that.”

“We all had our parts to play. It was a team effort, how about that?”

“I can agree on that,” he agreed, turning his attention now to his breakfast. Lance squeezed his hand, looking down to do the same.

_ Yeah, _ he thought,  _ this was definitely worth the wait. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy klance?? God tier concept. Thanks for tuning into this wild ride, guys. I hope you enjoyed the story, and I’d love to hear what you thought about it in the comments!
> 
> As for my next fanfic, I’ve got a couple ideas in the works but nothing quite started yet. If you want to get an email when my next fic uploads, subscribe to my pseud on AO3! If you want more frequent updates on my writing (and also a constant stream of other ppls awesome voltron/klance fanart on ur dashboard), [follow me on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic please kudo, comment, rec, and/or [reblog on Tumblr!](http://noussommeslessquelettes.tumblr.com/post/173756529836/brother-how-we-found-takashi-chapter-1/)


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